


The Logjam

by LaurelNymph



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Brief Discussion of Rape, Canon Divergent, Canon Universe, Ereri Canon Week 2018, Lumberjack AU, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Parallel Universe, Prison AU, no rape or dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-09 12:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16450334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurelNymph/pseuds/LaurelNymph
Summary: After Wall Maria was breached, the survivors had been told that their existence was a burden on the citizens of Wall Rose. They would have to work hard to provide for the extra mouths they were adding. Less than a month after the disastrous joke of a campaign to take back Wall Maria they had been sent to the wastelands to till the land. They were weeks away from any settlements and treated as less than human. They weren’t even allowed to join the military.It burned, for Eren to know that he would never get to join the Survey Corps and fulfill the promise he made to kill every last Titan. But he wasn't going to give up without a fight. After five years of farming things were about to change.





	1. Pining

_The huge face, flesh peeled away, leering mockingly down from the wall—_

“Eren.”

_The horrifying sight of his mother’s mangled body disappearing down the creature’s throat—_

“Eren.”

_The second one, covered in hard stones smashing through the inner gate—_

“Eren!”

His eyes flew open. The blood-red sky and Titans were gone. All he could see was Mikasa hovering over him, a familiar worried expression on her face. Something looked off though. “Mikasa, you cut your hair.”

She made a strange face at that point. It looked like she wanted to say more, but there was a sudden obnoxious clanging sound.

Everything came into focus as the dream left him, lying in a cold, hard bunk in the Wall Rose wastelands. Eren wasn’t a twelve-year-old boy in Shiganshina anymore; it had been a long time since he and the other Wall Maria refugees were shipped off to the wastelands to earn their keep.

“Eren, you need to get ready. The foreman—”

“I don’t need you to wake me up every day,” Eren muttered. She’d snuck into the men’s dorm to do this more times than he could count.

He swatted Mikasa away so he could sit up. Getting ready was simple: none of them had a change of clothes. They got nothing more than the bare necessities here. He had a coat and scarf for winter, and the key hanging around his neck. Nothing else.

All Eren could do was throw off the raggedy blanket he’d been given and get out of bed. Fully awake now, the three friends headed toward the mess hall. The same as every day for the last five years, they were served a stale, watery gruel that only barely gave them enough strength for the day’s work.

“Eren, eat something,” Mikasa insisted.

Eren could only stare down at his bowl. It was infuriating. “We grow so much of the food for Rose, why can’t we eat some of it?”

“Eren!” Armin looked around in a panic. The soldiers patrolling the room apparently hadn’t heard him. Still, “Be careful.”

Armin didn’t have to remind him. It had already happened a few times, that Eren had been sent to the camp prison for acting out and asking questions. He couldn’t help it; the shame of living like animals in a cage had been bad enough when they were trapped in Shiganshina with some free will. Now that they were literally held like prisoners on this desolate farm it was unbearable.

Even after the cull, the leftover Maria survivors had been told that their existence was a burden on the citizens of Wall Rose. They would have to work hard to provide for the extra mouths they were adding. Less than a month after the disastrous joke of a campaign to take back Wall Maria they had been sent here to till abandoned plots of land. They were weeks away from any settlements and treated as less than human. They weren’t even allowed to join the military.

Even though the legendary Survey Corps had dissolved forty years before Eren was even born, he had still dreamt of joining the military. The knowledge on how to fight the Titans had been lost along with the Corpsmen and women, but the mere act of becoming a soldier was a small step towards reversing that. It felt like he would at least be trying to fight the Titans if he could only do that.

“ _Five minutes!_ ”

Eren forced himself to start eating the gruel. The three of them would find a way to escape this place someday. There would be a time when he could rise up and fulfill the promise he’d made to himself on that day to kill every last Titan. He and Armin would see the sea someday. He would do it. Eren had to swallow his pride and stay strong until the opportunity came about.

* * *

After breakfast, the Wall Maria survivors lined up outside the cafeteria where they normally received the foreman’s instructions for the day. Nothing seemed to be happening. Eren looked around. There were many new faces among the soldiers today; one was conspicuously absent. The first soldier to step forward and speak was one of the familiar ones.

“Our foreman has been relieved of his post. Captain Kitts Weilman will be commanding this farm starting today.”

One of the unfamiliar soldiers—Captain Weilman, apparently—stepped forward. His thin, brown hair was pushed back away from his forehead. His mustache and beard covered much of his face, but he was obviously still irritated. He looked at them like they were worms. Eren already had a bad feeling about him.

“Today we begin plowing the East and South fields.” He nodded at the solider by his side. A book was passed to the Captain. “The following are assigned to East field: Ackerman, Andreas H, Andreas R, Arlert, —”

Eren listened for his name to be called.

“Hummel. Junge. Katz.”

No Jaeger. Weilman had skipped him. Eren’s heart beat harder, hoping that the captain would go back and realize he’d skipped a name.

“— and Zimmerman. All those whose name I did not call are assigned to South field.”

He couldn’t believe it. None of the foremen who had been placed in charge of this camp in the last five years had ever been especially merciful, but they usually let the splintered families stick together. Being together was one of the few things that made the forced labor bearable. It was not a good sign that on his first day here, the new foreman was separating them.

But Eren had little choice. He’d tried to fight his situation before; every time he’d been sent to the camp prison. The conditions there managed to be worse than their normal ones. Reluctantly, he lined up with the other workers assigned to South field. He had to survive. That meant following the soldiers as they split away from his friends.

* * *

“Crap!”

Eren’s hand plow suddenly tumbled to the side. He’d hit _another_ rock. Eren sighed before reaching down to right it. An ache shot through his back.

 _“How are they doing?”_ he wondered as he straightened up.

Plowing the fields was always exhausting. The burden seemed even heavier now that he was worrying about his friends. Armin had always been frailer than he and Mikasa. Eren was confident Mikasa would look out for their friend, but not knowing was hard. He tried to look off to the east. It was too far away to see anything.

Eren pushed his plow until the sun started to set. The guards collected the farming equipment before dismissing them. It was dark by the time the refugees made it back from South field—the furthest away. To Eren’s surprise, when they entered the mess hall it was empty.

“Where is everyone?” he asked, mostly to himself.

He got an answer anyway. A guard said, “East group already finished eating.”

They weren’t even going to be allowed to eat together anymore? What the hell was wrong with Weilman? Why would he do something so needlessly cruel? Eren’s hands shook with rage; he almost dropped the bowl that was handed to him. It was as hard as ever to choke down his anger enough to be able to eat.

Curfew at the farm camp was sundown; after eating Eren was forced to head straight back to the men’s dorm. He’d barely gotten a chance to speak with Mikasa all day. Her worrying could be stifling, but he did care for her. He didn’t want to cut off contact like this. He collapsed in the bunk he shared with Armin, still roiling.

“Are you okay, Eren?”

At least sharing a dorm meant he got to see Armin. Unless the guards started building some new dorms just to separate people, that probably wasn’t going to change. But after the way today had gone, he wouldn’t be surprised if Weilman found a way to do it.

“Eren?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Armin didn’t look convinced. Fair enough. Eren wasn’t fine. He was angry after such a lonely day. The soldiers called for lights out, so there was little more his friend could do. Eren lied down and tried to sleep.

* * *

At the very least, Weilman didn’t come up with a reason to separate the East and South groups at breakfast. The mess hall was bustling with people when Armin and Eren entered the room. It was a relief to see Mikasa for longer than two minutes. Eren tried hard to listen to their conversation instead of thinking about how much Weilman pissed him off.

They lined up outside the mess hall again, hopeful that maybe the assignments would be changed for today.

“Move out,” one of the guards shouted before they even finished lining up. “Captain’s teams from yesterday stand.”

That hardly came as a surprise. The same song and dance followed; split up during the day, East group fed dinner before South group, and heading straight back to his dorm after dinner. Weilman proved in no hurry to change the work assignments. The new soldiers were either more skilled than the old ones or Mikasa was being cautious, because not one day all week did she sneak into the men’s dorm. Eren was only allowed a few minutes with his friends at breakfast each day for the next full week.

The only thing he could look forward to was Sunday. The one day of the week where they were allowed to rest. Surely, he could talk to Mikasa Sunday. He only had to get through a little more of this crap. Eren went to bed Friday night ready to power through it.

“Eren! Wake up!”

There were hands on his shoulder shaking him. He tried to push the hands away but he was still tangled in his blanket. His thin but nice and soft blanket…

“Eren! The warning alarm already sounded!”

Ugh, now Armin was doing the same thing. He couldn’t move his hands, but he could ask, “Did Mikasa put you up to this?” He opened his eyes to the sight of his friend still poking him in the shoulder.

“Yes, she did. You’ve slept through the alarms before.”

Not most days. “I’m awake now.” To prove it, Eren even managed to untangle himself from his blanket. He stood up. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll meet up with you.”

“Just hurry.” And with that, Armin finally left. Still sleepy, Eren stumbled to the bathroom. He sat down in one of the stalls and closed his eyes, just for a second. He only realized he’d fallen back asleep when there was a loud banging sound from the other side of the door.

“Armin, go away!”

“I’m not Armin.”

Shit. That was not his best friend’s voice. It sounded more like… The door swung open and he was met with the horrible sight of Captain Weilman staring down at him the way you would look at a worm.

“Hiding from work in the toilet? You’ll be assigned Sunday work duty as punishment.”

Goddammit. 

* * *

Eren could barely muster enough strength to push his plow. First he hadn’t been allowed to eat breakfast, and now, knowing that he would be doing this again, tomorrow, on Sunday, even more alone, seven days further of barely speaking to his loved ones… It was unbelievable. He slogged his way through the day; one his way to the mess hall for dinner he was surprised by someone running past him.

“Where are you going?” a guard shouted.

“I just forgot my scarf!” It was Mikasa. She grabbed Eren by the arm when they passed through the door to the mess hall; while they were in a temporary blind spot, she hissed in his ear, “Meet me after lights out.”

She grabbed her scarf and disappeared before Eren could tell her not to do it. True, he missed her. True, Weilman had made it clear that he wasn’t going to be able to see her much unless he did what she had suggested. But Eren was familiar with what happened when you broke the rules here. He didn’t want Mikasa to get in trouble.

There was no way to warn her not to sneak out now. He knew Mikasa. She would do it, and Eren dreaded to think what might happen if she was hanging around out there waiting for him for any length of time. He would have to meet her, if only to convince her to head back to her dorm. Eren accepted his bowl of dinner and spent the meal thinking about how he might sneak out.

It was only after he exited the mess hall that he realized the supply chain was here today. A long line of covered wagons bearing seed, fuel, and food regularly made the trek through the chain of labor camps in the wastelands. They were parked by the storehouse while the guards unloaded supplies. It was the one job that the refugees weren’t allowed to do, to safeguard the decent food brought in for the military staff. Mikasa had planned this well.

The dorm guards were so distracted they even forgot the evening roll call.

Eren waited until everyone—Armin included—fell asleep. The windows in the shack had been painted shut when it was converted into a dorm, but every one of the refugees knew one of the men in the group had pried a window open. Eren tested the windows one by one as quietly as he could, looking for the right one. He almost cheered when one of them finally gave. He cracked it open just wide enough to slip through.

It was disorienting to land on the ground and realize that, for the first time in years, he could exist without constant scrutiny. A strange feeling. Somehow the air seemed fresher just knowing he was free.

_“Where does she want me to meet her?”_

Mikasa hadn’t said. They’d never had any need to sneak around before. He went through a mental list of all the areas in the camp, not able to come up with anything. Well, if he headed for the women’s dorm, he had to run into her. Eren stuck close to the side of the building as he headed west. He didn’t see any guards in the stretch of road between the two dorms. Took a deep breath before he tried to cross that gap.

He didn’t notice the shadow moving behind him. He did notice when he opened his eyes and a horrible pain shot through his chest.

“Awake?”

It took a moment to place the voice: Weilman.

Keeping his eyes from closing was a struggle; Eren forced them open. It took a minute to recognize the stacks of crates, the high ceiling, the stone floor… He was in one of the supply rooms. There was pressure on his hands and ankles; rope was holding him in a chair. His throat ached so badly he suspected he’d been in a chokehold, but he couldn’t remember anything after opening the window.

“What…” Breathing was still taking so much of his focus he couldn’t form a sentence.

“You again. First you tried to skip work, now you’re trying to break the anti-fraternization rules.”

Fraternization? No, he was only heading for the women’s…

Weilman’s assumption was actually perfectly logical, the first logical thing he’d proven capable of. It was a wrong assumption, but Eren’s mouth wasn’t working when he tried to say so. It wouldn’t have made much difference. Weilman was flicking through a pile of papers in his hands. The sour look on his face grew more intense with each page he skimmed.

“These aren’t your first offenses either.” The disgust was clear in his voice. “I’ve decided. We need more manpower at the logging camps, you’ll be transferring there.”

Even through the haze, Eren’s heart nearly froze at those two words. He knew he’d be risking the camp prison when he’d slipped out, but he would have never expected such a harsh punishment. _Everyone_ in the farms feared being sent to the logging camps.

Weilman’s arms suddenly came down on the arm rests. He looked at Eren intensely. “We also have some openings at the other farms in the west. We could arrange that, once you tell us your co-conspirator’s name.”

“Co-conspirator?”

“You were on your way to meet one of the ladies. Tell me which one.”

They didn’t know? A small bit of happiness bloomed in his chest. Mikasa hadn’t been caught. Weilman was still too new to their farm to put the pieces together himself. There was hope for Eren that no matter what happened to him, at least he could save his friends. There was only one answer he could have given under the circumstances:

“Never.”

He could at least manage that. Weilman face turned stormy. If he had had better control over his own face, Eren probably would have laughed. It did feel good to push back against the corruption keeping them down here. Weilman drew back.

“Our supply chain has graciously agreed to take you to the logging camp. They’re leaving at dawn so you’ll be held here for the next few hours.”

With the bonds secure on his wrists, there was nothing Eren could do but watch helplessly as Weilman turned around and left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pining ≈ pine ≈ trees ≈ wood ≈ lumberjack au
> 
> As part of the divergence aspect of the story, I want to clarify that Eren was 12, not 10, when the wall came down. In the current timeline, he is 17.


	2. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren arrives at the logging camp and gets paired up with a new partner.

It was still dark when he was removed from the storehouse. Eren was forced into one of the supply carts where the guards tied his wrists to a large, heavy crate. As if he could run. The last thing Eren wanted was to draw more attention to himself. If Weilman investigated him more, he might make the connection with Mikasa. That would be a disaster. Eren didn’t want any of his friends to have to go through whatever was awaiting him at the logging camp.

The logging camps were de facto prisons. Everyone knew that. They were populated entirely by criminals, reserved for those at the farm camps who had sinned beyond repair. It was a severe punishment, one that Eren had never expected. The logging camps were suspected to be terrible, but the Wall Maria refugees didn’t have very many details on what exactly happened there. No one had ever returned to tell the tale.

As the wagon lurched forward and the camp grew smaller and smaller through the gap in the canvas, Eren fought the burning in his eyes. He would never see his friends again. The very last threads of his old life were being snipped.

The fact that Mikasa and Armin would stay relatively safe at the farm was the only solace he had to cling to for the next nine days. Six days to reach the pinewood forest, three more following a winding road even deeper into the heart of it. The whole time Eren drowned in fury and anxiety. Fury at Weilman and everything he was losing, and fear of what was waiting for him. He had no idea what to expect from prison or the other prisoners. It couldn’t be good.

It was on the tenth day that he heard a new sound: the distinctive rasp of saws cutting wood. The sound grew louder as the wagon train peeled off the road into a small clearing. The sun was starting to set, but it was light enough that Eren could see a few large tents, and pairs of men chopping down wood. He had arrived at the logging camp.

“You two! Start unloading the gas.”

Two of the merchants appeared at the end of the wagon carrying Eren. They started unboxing crates of gas cannisters, of all things. Huh. So that’s what he’d been sitting on for the last week and a half. What did they even do with it?

“Let’s go, you.”

An unfamiliar soldier wearing a strange type of exoskeleton armor leaned past the crates to untie Eren. Partially. His wrists were still bound together, which made it tricky to hop down from the wagon bed without falling flat on his face. He tried to not think about all the eyes that had suddenly trained on him, the silence as all the loggers stopped what they were doing to stare.

As he was led through the clearing, Eren could hear whispers.

“…new kid…”

“…wonder what he did…”

Eren did his best to channel Mikasa and keep his face blank. It was a short walk to a tent bearing a sign that read “Foreman”. The tent flap was pulled back, showing a man hunched over a desk. He was wearing the same strange armor attached to gas cannisters. The foreman didn’t even look up at them when the soldier gripping Eren’s shoulder said, “Captain, I’ve brought the new transplant, from Captain Weilman’s farm.”

The soldier handed over a packet. The foreman glanced at it, but didn’t touch any of the papers.

“Have Levi train him. Dismissed.”

So that was that. All Eren could do now was hope that this Levi character treated him decently. He was marched out of the foreman’s tent and toward the clearing, where the men had mostly gotten back to work. They approached the one man who was chopping wood solo.

“Levi.”

The man turned around, so this had to be Levi. His face managed to look bored and irritated at the same time, but he didn’t look especially dangerous. Pale skin, black hair styled into an undercut, a few inches shorter than Eren, but much thicker. He set his axe down, and looked hard at Eren.e

“Captain’s assigning the new meat to you. Train him with the gear and work together.”

Now Levi’s face looked more annoyed than bored. He didn’t—or couldn’t—protest. The soldier untied the ropes around Eren’s wrists and left. At least he was able to use his hands again. But the intense way Levi was looking him up and down was making Eren nervous.

“So.” Levi had spoken. He had a low, smooth voice. Whatever he’d tried to say next was drowned out by a loud clanging sound. One of the soldiers was ringing a large bell in the clearing.

Now Levi looked thoroughly annoyed. He made a “follow me” gesture and Eren did. They joined a growing line of men spilling out of a tent. Based on the smell, it was the mess tent. Levi said nothing, so Eren kept quiet as well.

There were more whispers while in line, but no one said a word to him. Eren couldn’t help but notice the large gap that was surrounding them. No one in front of or behind them in line wanted to stand near them. Eren had no clue what that meant, but he tried hard not to look as worried as he felt waiting in line for food. The gruel didn’t look any worse than what they were served at the farms, which was at least a small relief. He took his bowl and followed Levi back out to the clearing. The others were all perching on the half-finished logs; Eren followed suit, sitting a few feet away from Levi.

Eren was still too nervous to feel very hungry, but he tried to eat. Levi was focused on his food and said nothing.

“So.” Eren almost jumped when Levi set down his empty bowl and spoke. His face was unreadable as he asked, “What’s your name and what the hell did you do?”

“Eren Jaeger.” He wasn’t sure exactly what the second half meant. He guessed what Levi wanted to hear was, “I broke curfew.”

One of Levi’s eyebrows rose. “Are you shitting me?”

“No?”

“You really got sent here for _breaking curfew?_ ”

And probably for asking too many questions, but what had sent Weilman over the edge was the sneaking out. Eren nodded. Levi’s eyebrow came back down. “Someone really had it in for you. What’d you do, fuck the foreman’s woman?”

Eren dropped his spoon as his face heated up. “No!” He ducked to pick the spoon up, trying to clear the blush from his face. He’d lost his fight to stay calm early.

“OK then.” Levi suddenly switched topics. “We’ll fit your gear first thing tomorrow.”

“Gear?”

“Vertical maneuvering gear. VMG.”

Levi didn’t seem to be wearing any sort of gear at the moment. Only thick blue pants, suspenders, and a red plaid shirt. Unusual material and colors, but there didn’t seem to be anything special about them. Eren wouldn’t get a chance to ask what Levi meant. The dinner bell was ringing again; mealtime was over. If this place was anything like the farm camp, lights out was soon to follow.

After returning their dirty bowls, Eren was hit with the realization that he didn’t know what to do next. Just how long was he supposed to stick with Levi? None of the soldiers had said much of anything to him. The other prisoners were heading for a second clearing full of smaller tents which obviously served as the dorms. Eren was loathe to ask what he was supposed to do.

“Which tent are they putting you in?” It was Levi. He’d backtracked to where Eren had frozen, taking obvious pity on him.

“The only thing the foreman said was to have you train me.”

Levi was looking annoyed again. He flagged down a nearby soldier, pointing at Eren as he asked, “Where is he sleeping?”

“With you. We’re out of tents.”

Very annoyed.

He seemed resigned, because he didn’t fight it. Just led Eren down the rows of tents. Pointed, “This one’s mine. Don’t even think of getting in my tent with your fucking shoes on. I’m trying to keep as much dirt out of it as possible.” Pointed next toward the tree line. “Latrine’s over there.”

Eren made sure, when they returned to the tents, to copy Levi’s motions, taking off his shoes before he ducked through the tent flap.

Once Levi lit a lantern, Eren could see just how was cramped it was inside. There was basically room for a bed roll, two pillows, and a blanket. The lantern hung from a hook in the ridge beam. Years in the farm camp had gotten Eren used to sharing a bunk with Armin, but this was different. He’d never before shared a bed with a strange man.

Who was a criminal.

And while Levi had asked Eren about his crime, he hadn’t shared his own. Eren had no clue what the other man, who was casually lying on one side of the bed, was capable of.

“You a light sleeper?”

“No. Not really.” That was partially why he was here.

“I don’t sleep much. Sorry if I wake you.”

Eren didn’t know what to make of that. Was he planning on doing something that would wake him up? So far Levi had said very little. He didn’t have a good read on the other man yet.

A muffled noise came from outside: “Lights out in five minutes!”

Even though he’d spent the whole day sitting in a wagon not doing anything, Eren was getting tired. Falling asleep here, surrounded by criminals, felt impossible. Yet he had no choice. Eren willed his hands not to shake as he forced himself to pull back the half of the blanket Levi wasn’t lying on. He laid down stiffly next to him.

The total lack of privacy in both the refugee and farm camps had taught Eren that despite any established anti-fraternization rules, there was often a price to pay for protection. Mikasa had been strong enough to scare those types away, but he was alone now and completely defenseless. He was at Levi’s mercy.

Eren felt suffocated by the tension in the tent. Even more so when Levi blew out the lantern, joined him under the blanket. It was dark now, but Eren felt wide awake.

“Kid.”

He tensed even more.

“I’m not gonna do anything to you. Unclench.”

That was the second time in an hour that Levi had made him choke. This time though, he was choking on his own laughter. It took him by surprise; Eren hadn’t felt like laughing in years, but this was so utterly ridiculous. Not just Levi’s choice of words, but the whole situation. He laughed until tears pricked his eyes. That prompted him to take a breath, to try to stop the laughter. He didn’t want to cry; not here.

Eren was grateful that Levi didn’t say anything more. Instead, the two of them lay there silently. Eren closed his eyes, hoping that eventually he could sleep. It must have worked, because the next thing he knew there was sunlight shining on his face. For a moment, he thought about how strange it was that he was seeing sunlight when his and Armin’s assigned bunk was nowhere near the windows.

Then he opened his eyes; the light was coming from the tent flap held by Levi. Armin was nowhere to be seen, because Eren was still at the prison camp. Where he would be for the rest of his life. A bundle of cloth suddenly came flying at him, landing on his chest and jarring him from his thoughts.

“Get your ass moving.”

They stopped by the latrine before Levi took him to a stream where some of the other prisoners were bathing. Levi announced, “You’re not getting back into my bed until you take a bath. And change your clothes.”

Eren looked through the bundle that had been thrown at him. Wrapped up inside a towel was the same type of blue pants that the other prisoners were wearing. The material was stiff and thick, more like canvas. There was also a green plaid shirt made of a soft, fluffy material, a bar of soap, suspenders, and boots. The same uniform all the prisoners were wearing.

After ten days of not being allowed to bathe in the wagon ride, even a cold spring could feel like heaven. It was a wonderful feeling to be clean, but it hurt to put on the clothes. He wasn’t a criminal and didn’t want to be marked like this. Eren would have given almost anything to have white pants and be wearing the Garrison crest instead of this.

“Ready?” Levi was standing in front of him, still drying his hair.

“Yeah.” As ready as anyone could be for forced labor in a prison camp.

They were served more gruel for breakfast before they joined another line of men in a different tent. Soldiers were checking out stacks of leather straps and gas canisters to them. Eren accepted the heap that was given to him, certain that this was the gear Levi had meant. So far, it just looked like a tangle of nothing.

The other prisoners took off for the forest as soon as they had suited up. Levi stood to Eren’s left and gave him a crash course on how to put on each complicated piece. Eren tried to copy him; it was an arduous task.

“No, that bit goes counterclockwise.”

“Tighten that belt first, or the other ones get fucked up.”

“Take that off, it got twisted.”

At least an hour had passed before Levi announced, “Now turn around.”

Eren felt hands on his waist straps, and then a weight pulling on his lower back. He twisted, and saw that Levi had attached a small, metal drum to his belt. Then the hands were near his thighs hooking up the tubing connecting the nozzle on the gas cannister to the drum. Finally, Levi passed him a stiff second belt with two handles attached by a length of more cable.

“They invented all this just to harvest wood?”

“No.” Levi started connecting his own gas tanks. “The Survey Corps did, before they all died.”

Eren’s heart almost skipped a beat. “The Survey Corps?”

“They used the VMG to kill Titans somehow. It’s useful for us though.”

The gear strapped to his body was designed to kill Titans? A huge grin fought hard to take over Eren’s face. That thrilled him, to have at hand the technology to eliminate the Titans. He thought about it, how much he would have liked to use this weapon until he had killed every last one.

“Basically—” Levi was walking into the forest and talking. Eren hurried to catch up. “—aim for the trees, squeeze the index trigger.”

He did so; two grappling hooks suddenly exploded out of the belt with a hiss, unfolding and lodging into a tree branch hanging overhead. “Middle trigger reels in the line.” With a whirring sound, Levi suddenly lifted two meters off the ground. He hung gracefully from the tree, looking down on Eren. “Once you make it up high enough, we start sawing.”

Sounded simple enough. He couldn’t wait to try it. Eren aimed for the thick, low-hanging branch Levi was pointing out. He clicked the index finger trigger and watched the two grapples miss the branch spectacularly. It took a few tries before Eren managed to get both hooks anchored. Excitement filled Eren as he reeled in his cables and felt the ground pulling away from him. He was only dangling about a meter high, but he still felt giddy about it. Levi ordered him to pull the second trigger, to loosen the hooks, dropping back down to his feet.

“Again.”

Then again. And again. He lost count of how many times it was before Levi had him try landing on the lower branches to rebase and shoot the hooks even higher in the canopy. Had Eren practice moving up through the tree. Back down. Back up. Eren was getting used to the gear when he pulled his index trigger again but this time the hooks didn’t shoot out. Clicked them again. Still nothing.

“And that’s what happens when you run out of gas.”

He looked over at the second tree where Levi was perched on a branch. He pointed at the cannisters on his legs. “The gas powers the grapples. Once you run out, you can’t move.”

The sun was well overheard now; Eren hadn’t even realized how long he’d been trying this.

“Climb down and we’ll get more gas.”

Levi dropped down gracefully with his VMG while Eren had to resign himself to down climbing.


	3. First Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren's new life in the logging camp with Levi begins.

“They let you have more today because you’re new, but that won’t happen again. So make sure you conserve your gas.”

Eren almost missed it. He was too busy trying to keep up with Levi as he marched off trail into the woods. They’d switched out Eren’s empty gas cannisters under the glares of the soldiers and went on to the actual logging. That meant leaving both camp and the trail. Levi moved gracefully among the visible roots and muck on the ground. Eren was used to the city, and the flat farmland, but not this. Given the other man’s brisk pace, it was hard for Eren to concentrate on anything more than not falling. One thing did catch his eye: red scraps of fabric tied to several of the trees fluttering by their heads.

“What are those?”

“The flags?” Levi replied. “Those mark the trees we have to harvest.”

He removed a flag from a tree a few meters off the path. Levi took off first, landing gracefully on a lower branch. The hooks retracted, shot off again, jamming into the tree even higher than before, the same as he had had Eren practice. It was slow going, but Eren copied the moves and managed to scale meters of tree. When he caught up to Levi, he was busy unpacking a bundle. It was the first chance Eren had to stop and look around.

Up here, it was quiet. He could only hear birds chirping. The forest was so thick he couldn’t see very far, but there were snatches of blue sky peeking through the branches. The air smelled fresher up here. He screwed up enough courage to look down. It was strange to be that far above the ground. He didn’t even feel scared looking below him. Eren felt oddly happy seeing how high up he was.

“Nice view?”

Eren flushed. Here he was grinning away like a bumpkin. It was a good thing Levi handed him a clean handkerchief and instructed him to tie it around his nose and mouth. At least it hid the stupid look on his face. It muffled him a bit when he asked, “What comes next?”

Levi lifted a whipsaw from his bundle. “Sawing.”

Of course.

Eren took the handle that was offered to him. Levi carefully set the saw in the bark. The branches alone were huge, stretching almost a meter through. The trees were even wider. It was no wonder they were aiming for the branches and not the trees.

“Ready?”

Eren nodded. It still knocked the wind out of him when Levi pushed the saw. The other man was strong. The handle almost slipped out of his hands when Levi pulled it back. Eren had to brace his legs against the branch before he was able to get into the rhythm of sawing at the wood together. They went at it, sawdust flying as the blade bit into the branch. Which explained why Levi insisted on the handkerchiefs. Eren helped guide the saw when Levi pushed, and pushed it back when the other man pulled. After years of hoeing and harvesting, he didn’t get tired even as the saw was halfway through the branch.

“It’s about to give,” Levi warned. With a mighty cracking sound, the branch snapped off the tree and went flying toward the ground. When it crashed into the floor the whole tree shook. Levi re-wrapped his saw; they dropped back down to the ground where the branch was lying. Two more bundles appeared, each one containing an axe. “Next is limbing. Chop the little branches off.”

At least Eren had used an axe before. He wondered briefly why they were allowed to have fairly destructive weapons in prison, but he quickly lost any ability to think about anything other than wood. The number of branches to cut seemed endless. His arms were starting to tire; he lost track of how many times he’d swung his axe. Every time he’d cleared a few centimeters it seemed like he found another branch he’d missed.

The log wasn’t fully delimbed until the sun was starting to set. Lifting the back end of the log felt like torture; Eren’s arms were shaking by the time they’d brought it back to camp. He barely had enough energy to finish dinner before he collapsed in Levi’s tent.

* * *

It was always difficult, to wake up and realize he hadn’t been having a long, horrible nightmare. Every day in the wagon train Eren had experienced the sudden realization of what his life had become upon waking. His second morning in prison was no different.

Levi inadvertently woke him up when he left the tent to stretch, sunlight pouring in. Again, Eren had to remember what had led him here: the separation, the anger, being sentenced to this place. Eren wasn’t sure when he’d ever get used to feeling this disoriented.

The sunlight returned; Levi looked at him and said, “Get your ass moving.”

The next few days were about the same. One day in the trees chopping down large branches and limbing them, one day sawing those branches down into planks to be sold. Switch back. Store the planks in one of the larger tents to wait until the merchant train came by the camp to buy it up.

Sometimes new prisoners would arrive on the train like he had, Levi told him, and sometimes they were taken away.

“You fuck up here, you get sent to the mines.”

If you were lucky.

That was another thing Levi had warned him about early. The exoskeleton he could see on the soldiers’ bodies was modified gear that shot concentrated bursts of gas, strong enough to blow your head off if they got pissed at you.

That, and the fact that sawing the wood down absorbed a remarkable amount of anger, kept Eren unnaturally quiet. His whole life here was quiet. Levi was not especially talkative, and the other prisoners gave Levi—and by association, Eren—a wide berth. That made Eren wonder if he should feel so safe by his side, but that did little to change his feelings. True to his word, Levi didn’t seem interested in getting anything from Eren except for the day’s work. Outside of sawing and chopping he didn’t interact with Eren. He remained both relieved to be safe from harm and lonely that he had nothing else.

“There’s no work tomorrow.”

“Huh?” Eren startled, almost lost his grip on the saw. The statement was a sudden as it was random. Levi paused until Eren picked up his half of the saw again.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

Eren had completely lost track of what day it was. Now that he wasn’t with his friends, it didn’t really matter. A sense of dread started to come over him, wondering what on earth he was supposed to do all day without work as a distraction.

“I don’t give a fuck what you do in the afternoon, but you’re helping me with laundry in the morning,” Levi continued. It was a small relief that for part of the day he had something.

“Okay.”

Sunday morning, the soldiers still rung the wakeup bell at the same time, but once breakfast was done they didn’t seem to care much what the prisoners were up to. The only rule was that they couldn’t go back to sleep. A few of the other prisoners were headed the same direction as Levi and Eren. He dutifully followed Levi to the stream with their bedroll, their dirty change of clothes, and soap.

The cold stream water made scrubbing, rinsing, and wringing the laundry almost as difficult as tree cutting. The warm clothes they were assigned to wear didn’t make much difference when they had to get into the water. Eren’s teeth were chattering too hard to make any attempt at conversation.

Because Eren did hope for that. Barely anyone had spoken to him since he’d been loaded into the wagon. His friends were kilometers and kilometers away. The only human connection he had was cutting instructions from Levi and barked orders from the soldiers, but it didn’t fill the void. He was lonely.

Asking questions had only gotten him in trouble before, but an inquisitive mind was a hard thing to suppress. It was when they were hanging laundry on the line that Eren worked up enough courage to say something. Anything.

“I’m surprised they give us so much soap.”

“Why?”

It was small, but it was something. A tiny bit of hope warmed him despite the early spring chill. Eren kept going. “We didn’t get any at the farm camp.”

Levi looked stricken at that statement. The wet shirt in his hands flopped to the ground. “What about disease?”

Eren kneeled to pick up the shirt; Levi’s hands were still hanging in midair. He’d live with this reality for years, but it still ached to say it out loud.

“The soldiers didn’t care. I’m sure they were glad when we dropped dead.” It was silent as Eren sized up the shirt. There were some leaves stuck to it, but no dirt. Clean enough. The shirt was shaken free of foliage and clipped to the line. “Your old camp wasn’t like that?”

“Never been in any other camp.”

A little shiver went down Eren’s spine. He was surprised at how, despite their situation, he could feel a miniscule kernel of hope, the tiniest reprieve from loneliness, hearing something personal, however small. He burned for more.

Never one to quit while he was ahead, he asked, “You came here from a different prison?”

“The others aren’t like this?”

The obvious redirect only stoked Eren’s curiosity, but he knew what it felt like to have something you couldn’t tell other people. Except for that last day five years ago, he’d never once told anyone of his dreams. He could respect the clumsy attempt to change the subject.

“Well, I was only at the refugee farming camp. Maybe the others are different.”

“Refugee?”

Levi looked oddly confused. Which only made Eren confused as well. Weren’t they all Maria refugees here?

“From Shiganshina,” he clarified.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause before Levi spoke again. “Sounds rough.”

That face flashed through his mind again, the sickening grin. His mother…

“It was.”

Eren tried to put the image out of his mind, reached down for something else to do. The pile of laundry was gone. Levi was clipping the last pair of pants to the line. Levi was the first to speak.

“We’re done here. You can go off and do what you want.”

His stomach turned, hearing that. Eren hated to admit it, but he was scared. He didn’t want to walk away from the protection he had. He was afraid of the other prisoners, not knowing if the others would be a merciful as Levi was. There was also that he didn’t know, “What _is_ there to do?”

“Jack shit.”

From what he’d observed today, that was pretty accurate. Some of the other prisoners were working out, and a few were hanging around smoking. There didn’t seem to be much else. Eren wanted to ask what Levi was going to do. He hesitated, worried about pissing off his tenuous protection by clinging too hard.

“I am going to fuck around with my VMG,” Levi announced. He picked up his washboard. The sick feeling in Eren’s stomach was growing. “You coming?”

Relief. Pure relief. Eren hurried after him. He couldn’t say why Levi was being so nice to him, but he was grateful. He followed Levi to the supply tent where surprisingly, the soldiers allowed him to check out his gear and two cans of gas. None of the other prisoners were in the tent, and none of the soldiers made a move to give Eren anything. Which made him wonder.

“Do they always let us play with the gear on Sundays?” Eren asked once they’d hiked about a few kilometers away from camp.

“Whoever chops the most wood can.”

Eren stumbled. The logging camp seemed to be becoming more disorienting every day. There were never rewards or extras at the farm. What made the two so different? It was baffling that he was almost treated better here. It confused him. He thought about it until he heard Levi—who was done suiting up—warn him, “Stand back.”

He did.

Watched as Levi’s hooks latched onto a tree several meters away. At first, he thought the other man had made a mistake, because surely that was too far away to— Pure shock overcame him when he realized Levi was swinging _between_ the trees, dislodging his hooks in midair and anchoring them again before he had the time to fall. Eren hadn’t realized it was possible to use the VMG to go in more directions than vertical. What Levi was doing. It was incredible.

He could picture it. A vision of flying through the air, chasing down a Titan, a blonde creature with raised fists. Adrenaline. Biting down into flesh with… He wasn’t sure exactly what the feeling in his hand was, but he felt the joy of knowing he was taking steps to fight back for humanity’s sake. Eren’s heart lightened in a way he had long forgotten he could feel, watching the beautiful sight. He watched until Levi suddenly stopped, let the momentum in the cables die, before rappelling back down to the ground.

His throat was dry. Eren had to swallow to say, “I didn’t know you could move from side to side with VMG.”

“With enough practice, yeah.” Which begged the question.

“Why don’t you run away if you can do that?” The soldiers had gear that shot concentrated blasts of gas, but with how fast Levi was going, he could probably dodge them. So why?

Levi pointed to the gas tanks strapped to his legs. “These won’t get you anywhere. There’s only about two hours’ worth of gas.”

That was right. Eren had almost forgotten running out on his first day. The cans weren’t designed for what Levi was doing. They were designed to get them into the trees and only that. It was too bad. Escape had been one of Eren’s first thoughts while he had watched Levi fly through the trees. The thought of killing titans was wonderful; equally strong was the thought that he could leave this all behind. But the sun was starting to set, proving Levi completely correct that the gas had lasted little more than an hour or two with heavy use.

“Ready?”

Eren returned to Earth. Levi had already removed all his gear; it was time to go back. Through the hike back to camp, Eren couldn’t get the images out of his mind. He’d quickly grown to like moving up and down through the trees with the VMG his first week. What Levi was doing earlier looked so freeing. Eren couldn’t help but picture what it was like to be the one zipping around like that, remembering the imagery that had been so vivid.

“Will you teach me?” he blurted out halfway through dinner.

Levi pulled his spoon out of his mouth. He appeared to be thinking as he chewed. Eren’s veins thrummed with nerves until Levi nodded.

“Yeah, that sounds fine.”

A bubbly feeling filled his chest, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was a shock for Eren, sitting there in the middle of a prison, and for the first time in years, realizing that he was happy. Only for a short moment that was killed when the ending dinner bell rang, but traces of the feeling lingered as Eren got ready for bed.

There was so much that he missed from his old life, from Shiganshina and even the farm camp, but being here was surprisingly not the hopeless existence he had feared. He had lost a great deal. But there was happiness, despite how conflicting it was to be feeling anything positive here. Confusion and guilt swarmed Eren until he fell asleep.

The main drawback to the day was that for the first time since he’d gotten to prison, he wasn’t too tired to dream.

When he fell asleep, his brain stitched together a memory of lying on the banks of the canal with his friends, poring over fantastic lands. Secretly, hopelessly, they’d promised to see the world together. The traveling they’d ended up doing was to go further into the walls, where they were treated like beasts of burdens, never to see anything other than their farm for life. Eren had made it the farthest, but it was only toward a worse fate. They had fallen so low. The pain was what woke him; his chest and throat were squeezing. It hurt to even gasp in air.

He was shocked when something soft hit his face. Too dark to see, but he grabbed it and realized it was one of Levi’s handkerchiefs.

Right. He had said he didn’t sleep much. Eren’s face flushed as he realized that the handkerchief meant Levi had obviously heard him crying. He tried his damnedest to breathe normally as he wiped his eyes.

There was a rustling before he heard Levi’s voice. “Look.”

Eren wished he wouldn’t say anything. He just wanted to forget this all.

“Don’t feel bad. Everyone cries when they first get here.”

“ _Even you?_ ”

That was one of Eren’s first thoughts, one that thankfully didn’t make it out of his mouth. His throat still ached too much to talk. If he had, he would have missed what came next: “You held out longer than men twice your age. I’m impressed.”

Oh. That was a weird flutter in his chest. His face—it had been calming down just a minute ago—flamed up again.

The crying. Eren still felt angry and embarrassed about his tears, but it helped to know that he wasn’t alone. He was able to steady himself and say, “Thanks.”

When he fell asleep again, it was a quiet, dreamless sleep.


	4. Forbidden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An enormous change comes to the logging camp that throws Eren for a loop.

Without Armin around, Eren quickly lost track of the time. He knew it had been months. Several Sundays had passed, but was no longer sure just how much time he’d been in prison. Eren knew he’d passed his birthday, but knowing that he’d made it to eighteen was the only grasp he had on the date. What he was more certain of was that it was long enough that his lessons with Levi were paying off.

It turned out Levi was the one chopped the most wood every week, and he always got the reward. By association, Eren got it now too. Using the gear like this… He was still much slower, but he was able to move through the trees without crashing to the ground. It lightened his heart to feel the wind rushing past him. Eren couldn’t say how many weeks it taken to get him here. In the evenings after dinner, it was getting lighter and lighter so he knew they were moving toward summer. That was all he could say.

That’s when the foreman made an appearance at breakfast, before the kitchen staff started serving their gruel. Eren tensed at the rare sight.

“There won’t be any felling today,” he announced. “After breakfast break down camp and get ready to move out.”

None of the other prisoners seemed perturbed by that. Including Levi. They all lined up calmly for food. No explanation was forthcoming; Eren had to ask, “What’s happening?”

“We’re moving camp. The supply chain must be coming today.”

“Moving?” Supply chain? The wagon train had come through several times already since delivering Eren to pick up wood, and this hadn’t happened any of the other times.

“It happens every few months,” Levi explained as they settled on the logs with their bowls. “Not all trees are good for harvesting. We move on when there aren’t any good ones left nearby.”

Made perfect sense. Eren had just never really thought it. Along with the other prisoners, Eren spent his morning taking down tents and packing away supplies in crates. Midday the wagon train rolled through, ready to be loaded up with planks of wood and the camp equipment. The only things left unpacked by evening were the few kitchen supplies needed to make dinner. They didn’t even have their tents for sleeping, just were expected to throw their bedrolls down on the bare forest floor.

Summer was coming which made it bearable, but it was still cold and uncomfortable. There was an upturned root digging into his back no matter how many times he shifted around. Eren didn’t get much rest before the bell—one of the few things left standing—was rung loudly.

“Get your ass moving.”

Levi’s friendly banter was unneeded for once. He was almost glad to get up and pack up their bedding into bundles. A cold breakfast was served before the merchants urged the oxen on.

The carts, loaded with the last of their equipment, started to move. Eren followed Levi’s lead, lining up with the other prisoners behind the last cart. This time around the merchants had brought extra horses for the soldiers, who were perched on the beasts with their gear ready, keeping the prisoners in their line. All Eren could do was put one foot in front of the other, his eyes trained on Levi’s back.

Kilometer after kilometer, they marched on. Eren had neglected to ask Levi just how far they usually went when moving. However far it was, it was longer than a day’s walk away. Once the sun set, the train came to a stop. No one made a move to start unpacking the carts, so this was clearly not the new camp.

Dinner was served before the whole cycle repeated itself the next day and the day after that and the day after that.

 _“What is this like in winter?”_ Eren wondered, as they trudged through a stream. Which piqued his curiosity about what kind of work they would be doing in winter when the trees froze.

He wanted to ask Levi, but for the first time since he’d arrived in prison he was in much closer proximity to the other prisoners. Both while marching in line, and when trying to spread their blankets in the forest without the barrier of a tent. Eren was apprehensive of speaking around them. In all the months he’d been here, they still hadn’t talked to him. They feared Levi too much. There had been murmurs he’d heard, but no interaction.

Eren kept quiet. Eventually, he was bound to find out. This was a life sentence, after all.

One thing he noticed on the march was that the farther they went, the more the trees were thinning out. What trees were there were much smaller than the ones they’d been harvesting. Then, just over the treetops he saw it: Wall Rose. It had been years since Eren had seen any of the walls; his feet dragged as he saw it and felt a deep homesickness at a sight that he’d see daily back at his childhood home.

“Stay in line!” The scream from the soldier was accompanied by a loud crack when his riding crop struck Eren’s head.

He was so stunned he didn’t understand why his head suddenly hurt so badly. His hand touched the area, surprised that it felt so tender. Then, it crashed down on Eren, being whipped like an animal. Without even knowing it, his hand was clenching hard into a fist. Before he could even think of swinging it, a cold hand clamped down on his wrist.

“Cool it!” Levi hissed before pushing him hard.

Eren buckled under the pressure on his back and took a step forward. He wanted nothing more than to shred the soldier to pieces—days without anything to chop had eroded his self-control—but the hands still firmly grasped on him reminded Eren about the warning Levi had given him his second day in prison: “Never piss off the soldiers.”

The sun glinted off the gear of the soldier who’d struck him, the trigger under his finger as he leered at Eren, daring him to throw a punch. Eren couldn’t help but remember seeing the soldiers at target practice, and how even trees would explode under the pressure of the modified VMG.

Despite everything that had happened to him, Eren wanted to live.

Another push.

Right.

He kept walking, counting his steps and trying to tamp down the urge to fight. It was a losing battle. There was still a low burn by the time they’d stopped for dinner. He almost bent his spoon in half trying to eat.

“Breaking curfew my ass.”

Eren looked up from his gruel. He must have looked as confused as he felt, because Levi kept going, an annoyed look on his face. “That bloodlust, when you tried to take a swing at a C.O. You’re here because you’ve killed someone.”

What kind of leap was that? He hadn’t killed anyone at the farm camp. But there was that day. The day that Mikasa was kidnapped. He’d almost forgotten about that; this time the spoon did buckle. That didn’t count. “They were barely human.”

Levi quirked an eyebrow. “They?”

The two of them did speak to each other, that was true, in the months that had passed, but Eren would have never said they were close. Most discussion between them was about VMG or cleaning. Occasionally he could wrangle brief conversations on other topics but it wasn’t common. It felt strange for Levi to show an interest in his past. As sick as it made him to remember it, killing them and handing the knife off to Mikasa for the finishing blow, he answered the question.

“Three pigs abducted my friend. I _had_ to stab them. They were going to sell her, when we were nine.”

“Nine, huh?” Levi took a bite. The annoyed look was gone, replaced by something Eren didn’t understand. His face was more unreadable than ever. “Guess that’s something we have in common.”

He didn’t say anything else, which was a bit maddening. Obviously Eren wanted to know more. It wasn’t a common thing. Levi looked at him. This time he looked apologetic. “I guess nine is too young to be sent to prison.”

Which wasn’t really a proper apology for the accusation, but Eren could forgive him for making a reasonable assumption. He wasn’t entirely wrong.

“It was ruled self-defense.”

Levi leaned back, into the tree trunk behind him. There was a pause before he said anything else. “Not for me. I was fighting in the underground rings since I was a kid.”

So that finally answered one question. “That’s why you’re here?”

“Yep. Got caught six years ago.”

Also explained why the other prisoners, and even some of the soldiers, were all terrified of Levi. At a young age Eren had learned some of the ugliness of humanity, and the depths people could sink to. Underground fights to the death were something he knew full well about. He couldn’t tell how old Levi was, but he had to be at least twenty-five. Minus six years, minus nine years, amounted to a great deal of time winning those fights. And the wins only happened one way.

That knowledge—Levi had killed many times before—should have scared Eren, but he felt calm instead. There was a peaceful feeling, like he had known Levi far longer than he really had. That he could sense that this man did not intend to harm him. And he did feel a little lighter learning more about this man that he was tied to.

“I really was breaking curfew,” Eren said. He didn’t want Levi to think of him as a liar. He felt even lighter as he finally got words out in the open. “At the farm camp. The foreman thought I was trying to meet one of the women at night.”

“Were you?”

“Well, yes.” Mikasa _was_ a woman. Levi’s eyebrow was rising again. Eren felt his face getting hot, realizing too late what he’d implied going on about meeting a woman in secret at night. “Not for that! It was my friend, I just told you about her.”

There was another long silence.

“She your girl?”

“No, I…” Levi certainly wasn’t the first to think so. Everyone around him had assumed the same; Eren could still remember his parents, back when they were alive, casually mentioning them getting married someday. But he never really had felt it was right. None of the girls had ever caught his eye. “I don’t have any special feelings for her.”

“Woulda been damn romantic.”

Eren had to agree with that. But it did nothing to sway his heart.

* * *

In the end, their new camp was erected a relatively short distance from the walls. These trees—while still quite large—fell short of the 50 meters. It was surreal to see the walls from camp. From the trees. Every chore, every day, they were there towering over him. He felt like a child all over again. But there was no home and no family to go back to.

“You’ve had your head in the clouds all day,” Levi commented one afternoon, after they’d staked out their new camp and returned to the trees.

That day that they had talked openly about their crimes hadn’t radically changed their relationship, but there was a shift. Maybe it was small, but it was there. Eren couldn’t have imagined Levi asking him something like this before that day.

“It’s…”

There was a certain amount of discomfort in their new state. He felt embarrassed about things that shouldn’t have embarrassed him, and his heart beat faster if he met Levi’s eyes. It made it hard to talk, but every word was worth it. Eren pushed past it; was glad his handkerchief covered his face when he choked out, “The walls remind me of home.”

“You’re from a border town, right?”

“Yep. I saw them every day from my house.” It flashed through his mind, beams collapsed onto his mother’s body. The basement, full of dust and a rotting old desk. Eren put his hands back on his side of the whipsaw and started cutting. Sliced into the branch until he could fell the lump in his throat smoothing out. Something pushed him to continue. “I always wanted to leave them.”

“The walls?”

Eren nodded.

“Why?”

Eren was relieved that the question he was so used to hearing thrown at him with scorn was more curious than anything else, coming from Levi.

“Ah,” he made the mistake of looking up. Levi was staring right at him, and he felt that rush of warmth in his face that was plaguing him lately. “Well, I just never wanted to live trapped in a cage like cattle.”

Levi nodded; Eren couldn’t see most of his face, but he felt it was a look of understanding. No one had ever understood him about this before Armin did. That fueled him. Pushed him into talking more.

“And I wanted to see the ocean.”

Even the handkerchief didn’t mask the obvious confusion. “Oh-shun?”

“My best friend, he had books about the world outside the walls. We would read them together all the time. Outside, there’s supposed to be a body of water called the ‘ocean’ so huge you can’t even see the other side. It’s filled with salt and fish bigger than a ferry.”

Levi didn’t look convinced, but Eren could swear he did look interested. There was so much from the books that Eren had hoped for. But.

“I guess it was a stupid dream. Not even the Survey Corps made it that far.” They had died out long ago.

“Sounds like it was a nice dream.”

It had been. His dreams had been shot to pieces so many times and yet Eren couldn’t let it go. Every time he caught a glimpse of the wall he thought about the ocean. Wondered exactly how salty it was, what it was like to feel the water on his body. Would it feel the same as swimming in the lakes he’d been to in his youth? What did it look like when the whales would spit out giant plumes of water? Did the fish in the ocean taste good? He thought about how much he wanted to climb over the wall. He would only be in Maria, true, and not outside proper, but Eren still yearned for it. He felt closer to home than he ever had before. He wanted to go back.

“There’s this thing called a volcano,” Eren blurted out late one night. He’d pushed it out of his mind for a long time, but it was all coming back. He could see the pages in his memory and the drawings there. The tent fell silent. Levi had paused the pushups he usually did after Eren fell asleep.

“It’s a huge mountain,” Eren continued. “And it explodes with rivers of fire.”

“Eren, maybe you should sleep.”

Sleep? He couldn’t. It felt like one of Armin’s mythical geysers had take root in him. He couldn’t tamp it down. The nearby walls tempted him, filled him with an energy he hadn’t felt in years. He couldn’t stop picturing it, all of the wonders he wanted so badly to sleep. For the first time in a long time, they were actually in reach. How could he sleep?

“We could probably use the gear to climb the walls.” It was something he thought about every day now when they were high enough in the trees.

“You’d get your head blown off for trying,” Levi warned. “Civilians can’t touch the walls.”

He didn’t have to tell Eren that. That was something he already knew well, having been raised in a border town. It was drilled into even the smallest of children to never go near them. Even if they had tried the area was patrolled so seriously that there wasn’t a chance. Getting caught would be the end. Touching the walls without military clearance was a crime punishable by death.

They still drew Eren in. The moment they were up in the trees and he was waiting for Levi to get the whipsaw ready, he always looked at Wall Rose.

He blinked. Closed his eyes and reopened them.

There hadn’t been a gate there before. There certainly hadn’t been a giant hole where Titans were slowly bleeding in past buildings that had sprung up around him. What had happened to the solid expanse of Rose? He distantly heard a voice that sounded almost like Armin, shouting and pounding on a window.

“ _Eren!_ ”

He was suddenly being shaken, realized there were hands on his face. Levi was staring in his eyes, pulling down Eren’s face to his. His eyes were wide, worried. When had he gotten so close?

“Snap out of it! You’re…” His voice dropped off. He let go of Eren’s face, leaving him cold and swinging in his harness. He still heard it. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble.”

There was no need for Levi to tell him that either. Eren knew it; he was already in trouble. He felt such a strong desire to do what was the most forbidden thing in this world.

“Just get back to sawing, okay? Don’t lose it on me.”

Eren wanted to promise Levi he would. He liked it when Levi was happy, but he was wearing thin with the tease always in sight. He tried to forget. He chopped. He sawed. He planed. He laundered. But at the back of his mind, Eren obsessed over Rose. Over crossing her.

Weeks passed.

Eren threw himself into the logging, hoping to dislodge the restless feeling in him. He followed Levi into the woods.

“We’ll work on this tree next,” Levi told him, pulling down their third flag of the day. There was a bit of gray stonework visible through the spaces between the trees. They were as close to the walls as they’d ever been since erecting their new camp. “Get your gear ready.”

Levi’s hooks set into a branch above their heads before he started to ascend. Eren looked up at the branch. His fingers were on the triggers but they were frozen. He couldn’t do it. Not again. Couldn’t go up there with the intention of coming back down to be imprisoned until he died.

He had no choice. He didn’t want to be sent away again, couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Levi. Eren didn’t want to go to the mines. He didn’t want to die. He had to survive; he had to keep going, had to force his shaking fingers down on the trigger to get up into the trees.

Eren’s hooks shot out of his belt. Only instead of going vertical, they went off in the wrong direction. They didn’t jam into the branch above him. They anchored in a tree several meters away. A tree even closer to the wall than this one. Eren had never once in his life believed in God or miracles, but seeing his zip lines pointing toward Rose felt so close to divine that he couldn’t deny it any longer.

He peeked up. Levi was still scaling the tree. He missed it when Eren took off, heading for the wall.


	5. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren reaches his breaking point stuck at the logging camp and decides to take a path that he may be not able to come back from.

Levi was unwrapping the whipsaw when he realized that Eren wasn’t hanging in front of him. He blinked. Eren had gotten much better with the gear, and he could keep up fairly well when they were climbing trees.

“Shake the lead out,” he yelled over his shoulder.

No response.

He couldn’t even hear the whirring of Eren’s VMG. Levi looked down, expecting to see him stranded on a lower branch or maybe still on the ground. There was nothing there but leaves and dirt. Eren was nowhere to be seen. Of course.

“He could have at least told me he needed to take a piss,” Levi sighed. He waited there, hanging in the gear and waiting to hear the sounds of Eren coming up the tree. When several minutes had passed, he wondered, “Is he constipated or something?”

That did happen to everyone, at least once in a while. Still, Levi would have appreciated some kind of warning instead of being left here to dangle alone like a jackass. He figured he might as well check on Eren, make sure he wasn’t dying or anything.

He jammed the saw into the tree trunk before he lowered himself and re-anchored his hooks, heading back down. “Are you sick?” he called out when his feet touched the dirt.

Still no answer.

“Eren?”

At that point, Levi started to worry. Eren had been pretty out of it since moving camp, so he hadn’t noticed when they were hiking that he was apparently unwell. More unwell than he had been, anyway. If Eren was lying passed out somewhere…

But Levi didn’t find him behind any of the nearby trees. And he hadn’t yet heard any sounds that someone was close by.

“Where the fuck did he go?”

Levi turned around and saw a flash of light. The setting sun was highlighting the slabs of stone making up the wall.

His stomach dropped.

“He didn’t.”

Another check of the trees in a five-meter radius proved he wasn’t here.

“He better not have.”

Only he’d clearly been going off the deep end with Rose so close by. The relentless talking, not sleeping, checking out randomly. There was also the fact that Eren had said several times he was certain they could climb the wall with the VMG. It shouldn’t have surprised Levi that this was happening. The sudden disappearance could only mean one thing.

There was only one thing he could do. He had to get him back before the soldiers realized what had happened and killed Eren. Levi launched his hooks and started moving toward the wall. With every swing, Levi hoped that he was wrong but he burst into a strip of clear land between the wall and the forest and saw it.

A blur, scaling the wall like a cockroach. It was already almost at the top. He just knew that was him.

“Goddammit, Eren.”

Levi didn’t want to leave Eren behind. He enjoyed having him around. Not only did he help with the cleaning, but he filled the long hours with a sense of purpose; he made life in prison far more bearable. But Levi was hesitant to touch the walls. Eren had already signed his death warrant, but Levi could still get away with his life if he left now.

The blur—barely visible fifty meters above his head—went over the edge.

“Fuck it.”

Levi couldn’t abandon him. He quickly scaled a nearby tree, falling far short of fifty meters. He could hook himself into the wall, it was strong enough to hold the hooks and when he tested it, his weight as well. But dangling off the wall with no way to move higher wasn’t that helpful.

Eren had managed it, so there was clearly a way to move up a sheer surface. Levi carefully rose up, dislodged the right hook only, and shot it up higher. He tugged on the right zip; the hook didn’t budge. Levi pulled his left trigger and reeled in that grapple. The one hook held him up long enough to rise a few more meters, then jam his left hook higher than the right one.

He could do this. It had always come naturally to him anyway, using the gear. Levi didn’t even feel frightened as he made his way up the last twenty meters. Heaving himself over the ledge was awkward, but he did it; Levi was standing on top of the wall.

And there was Eren, sitting calmly on the far side of the wall, his back to Levi.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Eren turned around; he didn’t even have the grace to look guilty. Instead, he was beaming, pointed off to the Maria side of the wall. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Levi dropped his triggers. Didn’t bother to look where Eren was pointing, because he was too busy trying to restrain himself from kicking Eren in his angelic face. How could he be so blasé, doing something so stupid?

“Eren.” It took a few breaths before he could keep going without wanting to throttle him. “We need to leave. Now.”

There was about an hour of sunlight left. They still had time to make it back to camp, and maybe not even get caught if they headed down now. They were far away enough from any of the border towns that this section of wall wasn’t surveilled. This was practically a miracle, that they were alive and unnoticed. Maybe they had made it away from camp, but it wasn’t as if they could run away. They were so far from any of the villages, they didn’t have any survival supplies beyond their canteens, and they had no way to navigate. They would die before they made it very far. There wasn’t much choice. They had to get down.

“ _Eren_.”

The other man didn’t budge. Levi took a step forward, heart pounding as he trespassed even further on Rose. Knowing full well that he would have to do something extreme to get Eren down from the wall. And what was he going to do to make sure Eren didn’t just do it again tomorrow? The only thing that was coming to Levi’s mind that could stop him was a broken arm.

As much as Levi didn’t want to hurt Eren, this was the only way he could think of to get him back to safety. He knew he was stronger than Eren, it wouldn’t be hard. He would snap like a twig. Then he could get him back to camp. It was the only way to save his life.

Levi was within reach of Eren’s right arm when there was a sudden loud thump. The wall shuddered under his feet. He looked around. Didn’t feel like an earthquake, and Eren hadn’t moved so it wasn’t him. So, “What the hell was that?”

“Oh, they’re down there.”

This cryptic bullshit was starting to piss him off. Levi strode to the edge of the wall, fully intending to go through with his plan but then he stopped.

“Holy _shit_.”

His blood ran cold. On the other side of the wall were several Titans. Levi had never seen one before. They were shorter than the trees, about fifteen meters. They were disgusting, twisted sacks of flesh with unnaturally long limbs. Naked, bulging, with open drooling mouths. They were pressed up against the wall, pushing each other. Their jaws snapped open and shut. Their hands were grasping uselessly upward, eyes looking directly up at them, the eye contact chilling.

“What the fuck are they doing?” Levi choked out.

“I think they were drawn to our camp.” Eren sounded so calm Levi wondered if he’d lost it for good. “That’s what the border towns are for. They lure them into one place so they don’t touch the other parts of the wall.”

If they were behaving abnormally, was there a chance that, “Are they going to break through?”

Eren shook his head. “The only one that was big enough to break the wall was the Colossal Titan. These ones are much smaller.”

That was a disturbing fact, that they were nearby, but if they couldn’t get through the wall there was no point in worrying. The only thing Levi needed to be worried about right now was how to get Eren down.

“All right, you’ve seen it. You saw the wall, you saw Maria. You even got to see some Titans. Now let’s just go,” he said, hoping that maybe he wouldn’t have to hurt Eren after all.

Eren looked at Levi, then Maria. It looked like he was wavering between his two options. Damn. The sun was starting to set. They didn’t have time for indecision. He would have to go through with it after all.

“Don’t make me force you.”

His hesitation was obvious. Eren did look at him, almost looked apologetic, but he still didn’t move.

“You won’t survive like this. You’ll die if you try to run. We need to get off the wall.”

“I can’t go back.”

His choice was made. Levi made his too. He picked up his triggers, still dragging behind him. He tucked them back into their holsters before he took a half step back with his right foot. Held up his hands in front of his face. Eren knew that Levi had spent time in the underground fighting rings. He had to know this was a fight he would lose. Levi hoped that his fight stance alone would spook Eren into moving.

He was wrong.

His fist connected with Eren’s face. Before the other man had the chance to react, Levi grabbed a handful of his shirt just behind his shoulder and pulled hard, forcing him to bend just as he was bringing his knee into Eren’s stomach. He dropped him to the brickwork under their feet and waited for Eren’s retching to subside. Levi pulled back, needing him in decent shape to get him down the wall. He couldn’t damage him too badly up here, but he hoped that Eren would understand how serious this was now.

“It’s time to go.”

That was when Levi made a mistake he hadn’t made in a long time. He reached out a hand to help him up, not even considering the possibility that Eren would try to hurt him. Instead, he lost his balance when Eren pulled himself up by Levi’s hand then shoved him hard. His guard down, Levi stumbled. By instinct, he grabbed for Eren again, felt him trying to break free. He tried to throw him, get him into a position where he could pin Eren, but Eren pushed back throwing them both off-balance. Levi crashed to the ground and rolled. He caught a glimpse of Eren stumbling the opposite direction, the backs of his legs slamming into the low ledge of the wall. Heard the scream as he tumbled over the edge.

Levi couldn’t even breathe, the image of Eren falling stuck in his mind.

He forced himself to his feet and bolted for the side where Eren had fallen. He looked down and heard it first, the sound of wood snapping as Eren’s body crashed through the layers of tree branches. Levi looked frantically for him, quickly catching sight of a blur dropping through the air. One of Eren’s zip lines got snagged, and Levi watched in horror as Eren dangled from a tree branch, fifteen meters off the ground, unconscious and with an obviously broken leg.

“EREN!”

He couldn’t tell if Eren’s body was moving because he was still alive, or if a breeze was shaking the branch he was hanging from. He had to check, had to get Eren back. Levi grabbed for his triggers, intent on going down there. He would come up with a way to get Eren back up to safety. He had to be alive down there. He’d rapelled halfway down the wall when he looked again at Eren. He looked awake now, but he was staring at something past Levi.

There was a loud thud.

“Shit.”

Another thud. And another one. And another one. A familiar, _rhythmic_ thudding. Levi slowly turned in his harness, desperately hoping that he wasn’t hearing what he thought he was hearing. But he knew what he would see when he did turn around.

One of the Titans, a long white beard on its face, was approaching. The other trailed behind it. Like some kind of horrible nightmare, they’d fallen on the Maria side of the wall. The Titans that were crowding the wall earlier had realized a human was on their side. The one was heading straight for Eren, who started struggling. He was clearly stuck, wrapped up in his cables and unable to move. Levi swung from the wall to the top of the tree.

If Levi hurried, maybe he could drop in and grab Eren before the Titan could get him. He descended even faster, his heart pounding wildly when he saw the thing’s mouth open, its hand reaching out. Just a bit more, just ten meters until he could grab Eren and—

But he was too late. There was still a few meters left to go when Eren was snatched from the branch. Levi could only watch in horror as the Titan shoved Eren in its mouth.

It tilted its head back.

Then gulped.

He could see the lump moving down its throat as it ate Eren.

In one bite.

Gone.

Eren was gone.

The Titan had a serene look on its face, hands on its belly and satisfied with the meal he’d made out of Levi’s only friend.

Levi couldn’t even move, shocked and horrified at what he had seen. He hung from the branch, helplessly hovering just above the Titans’ heads. The others were mobbing the tree now, all looking up at Levi. Dimly, he wondered if they were smart enough to jump. They could probably reach him if they did that. The triggers were still in his limp hands, but he didn’t have the energy to click them and start moving out of their range.

“Eren.”

The serene look on the bearded Titan’s face suddenly soured. Its hands clutched its belly harder. It made a pained face before it started to shake. It opened its mouth, almost as if it were gagging—was it going to puke? Did Titans puke?—and something burst out. But it wasn’t vomit. It almost looked like an arm, shooting up and barely missing Levi’s face.

Its belly swelled quickly, shocking Levi into grabbing his triggers and pulling up several meters, seconds before the Titan exploded. Blood and flesh sprayed through the air, just barely missing Levi. The corpse flopped to the ground, shaking the tree Levi was clinging to hard. Steam began to pour off the dead one. In the haze, Levi could see a shadowy figure moving.

A new Titan stood up through the mist. It had shaggy brown hair and only a few tendons and scraps of skin connecting its jaw with its head. Sharp teeth were visible as it threw back its head and let loose a deafening roar.

“What in the fuck is going on?”

Levi had never heard anything like this before, about a Titan bursting forth from another Titan. The shaggy one started moving, and aimed a punch straight at one of the remaining Titans’ heads. It immediately exploded. Another corpse hit the ground and steamed away. He’d never heard of this either, of a Titan going rogue and attacking fellow Titans. Levi could only watch in morbid curiosity as this Titan went after the others in the group. As it bit, scratched, kicked, and punched the others to death.

Finally, only the shaggy one was left standing in the clearing. The other Titans’ bodies had dissolved away. The blood that had splattered the rogue Titan had evaporated.

It didn’t make another move.

Levi looked down on it, wondered why he was no longer scared. A breeze parted the creature’s hair, revealing the nape of its neck. Suddenly, Levi felt his arms moving. He left go of his triggers and reached for the two axes that were still strapped to his back. He took Eren’s axe in his right hand, his own in his left. There was something he knew he should do, watching this aberrant Titan.

He managed to wrap his hands around the axe handles and his triggers, pulling in the hooks. He plunged down in a free fall, speeding toward the titan. He threw one axe first, sending himself into a spin that let him tear the axes across the nape of its neck; dropped the axes in time to launch his hooks again into a lower tree branch. He dropped to the ground gracefully as the last Titan went to its knees. The head came crashing down near Levi; the gaping wound in its neck came into focus.

There was something inside.

He could see a greed plaid scrap of cloth that gave him a hope that left him shaking. It disgusted him, but Levi picked up his axes and used them to climb the rapidly deteriorating Titan body. He stood on its shoulder, not believing what he was seeing. It was Eren’s body, nestled inside the nape and still partway stuck in its muscle.

Levi cut him out carefully, marveling at how he didn’t have one scratch or bruise on him. The gear was even still there, all belts intact and cables still tangled around him. Levi put his hand in front of Eren’s mouth and found he was breathing. He was unconscious, but alive.


	6. Amnesia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi struggles with the knowledge he gained rescuing Eren from the wall.

Eren didn’t wake up while Levi wrestled him into a position where he could carry him and use his triggers at the same time. He didn’t stir while Levi inched the two of them and their axes back up the wall. There was no reaction when Levi threw the four of them over the ledge and they crashed onto the top of Rose, either. Or when Levi pinched his arm or shook him or splashed some of his canteen water in his face. Eren didn’t seem to be waking up anytime soon.

Medical attention was clearly needed, but Levi couldn’t help but notice that the sun was nearly down at this point. He could barely see the silhouette of any of the nearby trees. If he tried to use the gear now, he’d probably kill them both. There was no way Levi could see well enough to get them all back to camp and the primitive medical care the prisoners received.

“Not much choice,” he muttered. Levi took the axe wrappings and folded them into a small pillow, lifted Eren’s head up, and slid it under. And dried his face with his sleeve while was at it. Then he sat back against the ledge of the wall to think.

It was completely dark at this point, without even any moonlight to see by. By now they’d missed evening roll call; there wasn’t much point even trying to get back. Being AWOL was a certain ticket to the mines. Mining was even more deadly than logging. Not an option he was willing to go back to. All Levi could do at this point was stay on top of the wall and wait for Eren to wake up.

If he was going to wake up at all.

If Levi really wanted him to wake up. Honestly, he was shaken by what he’d seen. Not only the Titans, which were easily one of the most awful things he’d ever seen, but Eren’s transformation. Never once in his life had he heard of humans being able to turn into monsters like that. How had it happened? Had Eren known he could do that already? Was he in danger sticking around a man who had quite literally been resurrected from Titan flesh? And what had made him think that cutting open the thing’s neck would do anything? No one, except for the long dead Survey Corps, knew how to kill Titans so why did he, who had never spent any time in the military, suddenly understand it?

Those were questions Levi had no answers to. As long as Eren was asleep, he wouldn’t get any. The night stretched on. There was nothing else to do, so Levi fell back to what he’d always done when he was cooped up at night and unable to sleep. Pushups. Sit-ups. Held the pushup position for as many minutes as he could. Used the axes to lift, something he usually couldn’t do in their tent.

At some point, he fell asleep. When Levi woke—neck screaming from spending all night on a brick pillow—it was starting to get light out. He looked over his shoulder; Eren hadn’t moved from the spot he’d landed on.

“Eren?”

Silence. A quick check proved Eren had a pulse, so at least he hadn’t died during the night. Levi wasn’t sure if he was still unconscious from the trauma his body had been through, or if he was just sleeping deeply like he normally did. Either possibility was pretty likely. Well, there was only one way to find out.

Levi reached out and shook Eren’s shoulder. “Wake up.”

Eren’s face twisted. His hand flopped up to swat at Levi. His heart raced as he realized Eren was waking up.

“Mikasa, stop.”

Trying to wake up, anyway.

“I’m not Mikasa.”

Eren’s eyelids opened slowly. What a relief to see those green eyes again, and know he was awake. Eren blinked, looking at the sky in confusion.

“What happened to the tent?”

All Levi could do was stare incredulously. Was he… pretending not to remember what had happened? Or did he really not know? Levi wasn’t sure what Eren looked like when he lied, or if he was a good liar at all. He couldn’t read the situation as Eren sat up, looking even more confused. “Where am I?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

It seemed hard to believe that Eren couldn’t remember, but then again, he _had_ hit his head going over the wall. Being eaten by a Titan probably didn’t help the brain injury. He’d never given Levi a reason to suspect him before, but he was still unsure. He gestured left and right, “Take a look around you.”

Eren did. It quickly dawned on him. “We’re on Wall Rose?”

“Yep.”

The confused look on Eren’s face was so intense Levi took pity on him. Explained, “You gave me the slip while we were felling branches and made it to the top before I could stop you. I followed you to try to get you to come back. We fought and…”

Levi wasn’t sure what to say about all the Titan shit. If Eren didn’t remember, he likely wouldn’t believe it when Levi told him he’d turned into a fifteen-meter-tall Titan. If Eren was pretending not to remember, it was some basic self-preservation to pretend he hadn’t seen anything. He settled on, “You got knocked unconscious and I couldn’t get you back to camp.”

“Camp…” The blood drained out of Eren’s face.

“Yeah, we’re AWOL.”

Eren swallowed hard.

“We can’t go back, obviously,” Levi continued. “So I hope you have a plan for this.”

A guilty look crossed Eren’s face. “I did think about it. You can just walk on top of the wall. No one would find you, and you’d hit a border town eventually.”

That was more thought-out than Levi was expecting, but it was still pretty risky. There was no way of knowing which direction the nearest town was. The walls being almost continuous circles, they only had two options. But the circumference of the walls was so great if they chose wrong, they could be in serious trouble.

It was still less risky than going back to camp and being packed off to the mines. This way, they had at least a small chance of surviving. If he was going to die, he wanted to take the option he’d regret least. And trying to strike out was better than heading back like dogs with their tails between their legs. Levi got to his feet.

“Can you stand?”

Eren did. Levi couldn’t stop looking at the other man’s legs, wondering how the one which had gotten mangled in the fall just the day before looked to be in perfect working order today. There wasn’t even a hint of any mis-set bones or breaks. Eren was walking perfectly normally like he hadn’t been injured at all.

“Which way do you want to go?” Levi asked, deciding not to think about that. This was Eren’s escape plan, after all. The constipated look that suddenly took over his face was not very comforting. Levi was starting to suspect Eren’s plan wasn’t formed very far ahead of “get on the wall”.

“Trost,” Eren finally said. “I want to go to Trost.”

Trost, Eren explained as they started walking along the top of the wall, was the southern border town of Rose. He had passed through it as a refugee and was convinced his father’s friend Hannes still lived there. That was the closest thing to family Eren had left. Since Levi had no family—Kenny was long gone, but they had to have been related, although he was afraid to know exactly how—he went along with Eren’s plans to go south. Any town was fine with him.

The haphazard way they’d left the camp caught up to the them quickly. They had some water left in their canteens, but no food. They had axes, but no other tools to help them start a fire or sanitize any water they might find. There was no bedding, although now that it was summer it was less necessary. And no protection from the summer sun.

Levi focused on the walk, pushing down his sweat, hunger, and thirst. He thought about how they were going to survive this. They only had about a third of their gas, so they could descend the wall but he wasn’t sure how many times they could do it before running out. He kept his eyes peeled, looking on both sides. It was just past noon when he finally saw what he was hoping to see.

A stream, wending its way under their feet and past the grate that dammed all waterways that crossed a wall.

“I’m going down.”

Eren looked confused by the sudden statement. “Where?”

Levi pulled out his triggers, nodding down toward the stream. “I’ll refill our water. The stream might have some fish, too. You wait up here.”

“I’ll come too.”

“No. We need to preserve the gas.”

Eren didn’t look pleased by that, but he handed over his canteen. Levi felt nervous going down since he wasn’t sure how intensely the soldiers were looking for them. Getting caught the very next day after their escape would be incredibly pathetic. All he could do to prevent that was move quickly as he set up the axe wrappings in the water into a crude net. While he waited for the trap to work, he went looking for kindling and some branches. There were some edible roots by the water’s edge, wild strawberry vines loaded with fruit, and his net managed to catch a few small fish.

He brought the haul back up to the wall.

Eren still seemed a little sulky, which might have been annoying if it weren’t so much better than the last few weeks of looking dazed. There was actual focus in his eyes now. Levi was uncertain of how to feel around Eren with what he’d seen the day before, but he was still glad to see he looked a little more alive now. While Eren cleaned the fish, he used some wood and strips of torn fabric to start a small fire the way Kenny had shown him.

“I’m sorry.”

Levi looked up from the branches he was tying together into a frame. Eren was concentrating hard on the fish kebabs he was roasting. Levi hung their canteens (thankfully made of metal) over the fire to boil their water and sat next to Eren before he responded.

“What for?”

“You don’t want to be here.”

Well, it was certainly true that, “It’s not ideal, but it’s better than prison.”

He held out his hand for his fish. Eren handed over one of the skewers, but he didn’t look especially comforted. Looking at that guilty face, Levi just couldn’t bring himself to be afraid of Eren. Sure, they had only known each other for about four months, but it was an indescribable sense that he got—similar to what he’d felt facing that Titan—that he should trust him.

“You did a nice job cleaning this,” he said after he’d taken a few bites of roasted fish. “No bones.”

“I used to fish in the canals by my house. My dad taught me… how to…”

Levi looked up. Eren had abruptly stopped talking. He was frowning at his fish, hard.

“What was that about your old man?”

He wasn’t going to find out. Eren swayed for a second before his eyes closed and he hit the deck.

“Shit!” Levi barely managed to rescue Eren’s skewer before it touched the bricks. Eren had collapsed right on Levi’s lap. The brain injury had to be more serious than he’d thought at first, if Eren was still going to lose consciousness like this. Levi desperately wished they had access to a doctor right now. He didn’t know anything beyond some basic first aid from patching up Kenny. Eren needed more help than he could give.

He set their dinner aside, unable to do anything but settle on being a pillow. (The previous evening’s pillow was still soaked from being turned into a net.)

This time, Eren was only out for about fifteen minutes before he stirred. He pressed his face deeper into Levi’s thigh and grabbed his knee. Levi froze. This was… really unexpected. There was no way Eren was eager to touch him like this. He had to still be asleep. That fact didn’t stop Levi from feeling embarrassed; he hadn’t been embraced since his mother got sick. It felt childish to be hugged after decades of his only human contact being gladiator fights. At the same time, it also felt kinda nice. But Eren probably wouldn’t appreciate waking up like this, clutching someone he wasn’t especially close to. He was probably dreaming about someone else.

That stung.

Or maybe it was just his legs falling asleep? He moved his feet, trying to get some blood pumping without disturbing Eren too much.

“My pillow…”

Well, that had failed. Eren slowly sat up, either not noticing that he’d been sleeping on Levi’s lap or choosing not to say anything.

“Finish your fish.”

* * *

Life on the lam was pretty repetitive. They’d go to sleep when the sun went down and wake up when it came back up. Then the entire day was spent walking along the top of the wall. They kept an eye on the Rose and Maria sides for any supplies. There were no Titans that they could see on the Maria side after a few days’ walk, which led them to believe a short forage would probably be safe enough.

In all that time, Eren still seemed oblivious to what had happened when he fell into the Maria side. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t seem to be acting suspiciously. Levi kept looking over at him to see if there was anything amiss. The only thing he noticed was that about half the times that he did, Eren was already looking at him. A bit odd, he didn’t think Eren usually stared at him this much, but at least there were no more fainting spells, and his leg wasn’t showing any signs of distress. For now, Levi still trusted him.

They didn’t have enough space in their canteens to hold any more than two day’s worth of water, forcing them to touch down on the wall every other day of their trip south. Throughout their travels, they didn’t see any towns or roads on the Rose side, which forced them to stick to the wall. Since Eren was still less experienced with VMG, Levi insisted on being the only one to use their limited gas. It clearly pissed off Eren, but survival was more important than that.

It was on his third trip to the ground that Levi heard the telltale fizzing sound of a nearly-empty gas tank. He was almost at the top too, leaving him dangling almost fifty meters off the ground with a bundle of fruit strapped to his back.

“Eren.”

His head popped over the wall ledge. “Is everything okay?”

“The tanks crapped out. Gimme a hand.”

A minute later, he saw a grapple from Eren’s belt slowly being lowered toward him. Levi hooked it into his belt before he clicked his triggers, hoping there was just enough gas to—

The hooks popped out of the wall and snapped back to their holsters before the tank stopped making any kind of sound. It was dead. “Pull me up.”

Slowly, he started rising. Eren was red-faced and sweaty by the time Levi made it to the wall ledge. It was definitely worrisome, that they didn’t see any kind of break in the forest for the roughly six days they’d been walking. They were down to two mostly-empty tanks of gas, which was a pretty serious situation. Being stranded on the ground would be hard, but being stranded on top of the wall would be deadly. Levi did some quick math. Even if they tied all four zip lines together, they’d still have barely fifteen meters. Not enough to climb down, should the worst happen.

With how much gas was left in Eren’s tanks, Levi could only make two more trips down, but getting Eren down at the same time would probably strain the gas. He only had enough to get them down the wall at this point.

“Does anything around here look familiar?” he asked, hoping that at least they were close to Trost. Close enough that this was enough gas? To his dismay, Eren shook his head.

“Trost is past the forest.”

Fuck. There were still trees as far as the eye could see. All they could do was keep walking. Briefly, Levi considered ditching the empty tanks and the equipment strapped to his body. They weren’t about to find anywhere to refill the tanks, and without gas the whole setup was pretty useless. Something told Levi to hold onto it, so he kept it on his body while he and Eren pressed forward.


	7. Soulmates - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey along the walls takes an unexpected turn when the worst happens.

The end of the forest was still out of sight when they set up their little camp on the sixth day. There was no kindling left to start a fire, which was just as well, since the only food they had left was some wilting pears. It wasn’t as if they needed to cook. When Levi took a drink, he had to tilt his canteen dangerously far back. There was no denying it anymore.

“I guess we’ll have to keep going on the ground from now on,” Levi commented. Hopefully the soldiers had already concluded that they were dead and weren’t looking for them anymore. It _was_ pretty miraculous that they’d made it this far.

“Are we out of gas?” Eren asked.

“Just about. There should be enough to get us to the ground and that’s it.”

The two of them went back to eating. Levi had polished off his pear when Eren spoke up again.

“How are we going to get the gas back up to the second person?”

That wasn’t even remotely possible. Then again, Levi had never really explained the plan. “We’ll have to go down at the same time.”

“There’s a way to do that?”

“I got your unconscious ass up the wall, I’m sure we can do it again.”

Eren looked even more confused. “When did you take me up the wall?”

Levi just stared. This was a feeling he’d been rassling with all week, and he wasn’t sure when or if he wanted the answer. But it was starting to bother him enough to finally say something.

“I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me or if you really don’t remember.”

And now Eren looked pissed. “I’m not—” he flushed “—messing with you. Did it happen when I hit my head?”

“You remember that part then?”

“You told me I hit my head. On top of the wall.”

Right. Levi had. Well, he’d come this far. Might as well tell Eren the rest. “I didn’t say this before, but you fell off the wall when we were fighting.”

Eren’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “ _I fell off?_ ”

Levi nodded.

“How far did I fall?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

“Pretty far. If your line didn’t snag on a tree branch you’d’ve been turned into a pancake. I saw you hanging from the tree and fetched you. You must have hit your head during the fall. You were unconscious when I brought you back up.”

“Wow.” Eren stared down at his hands. It was a while before he said anything else. “Thank you.”

Levi wavered over whether or not to mention the Titans. He didn’t want to keep important information from Eren. That left him feeling pretty shitty, even though he’d done it out of concern for his own safety. That was kind of a stupid worry though, wasn’t it? If Eren could transform at will, why was he even here? He could have busted out of prison or his farm camp years ago. He could have sprinted along the top of the wall and reached Trost in a day at that size. And if Eren was planning on hurting him, he could have slaughtered Levi a long time ago.

Mind made up, Levi held up his thumb and index finger a few millimeters apart. “You were this close to being eaten by a Titan.”

If he had thought Eren looked surprised before, it was nothing compared to his face now. His green eyes looked like they were on the brink of falling out of their sockets they were so buggy and wide. “Are you saying I fell on the Maria side?”

“You sure did.”

“There were Titans there?”

“Yep.”

He got very quiet. Then, “And you went down to get me?”

“Well, I was pretty sure you were still alive.”

Eren’s blush—it had been starting to fade only a moment ago—flared back up. “What?” he stammered. Hey now, Levi had done a lot of shady things to survive, that was true, but he wasn’t a monster.

“I wasn’t gonna leave you to die.”

That was an intense amount of focus Eren was suddenly paying his half-eaten pear. “You faced the Titans for me… That’s amazing… I… Thank you.”

It felt strange to get all this praise at once. His skin was crawling but it almost felt good. Levi tossed his core over the edge of the wall, also focusing harder than a pear really needed. He could wait to tell Eren the rest. Right now his mouth felt full of cotton and it was a struggle to get any words out.

“Let’s get some rest.”

Levi still wasn’t used to the horrible sensation of spending the night lying on solid brick. At least on the ground they might find some nice, soft grass. It was something to look forward to when the sun rose and he and Eren stood at the wall’s edge. They were out of food and water; there was only one viable option left.

“So how does this work?” Eren asked, looking carefully over the edge. He’d been cautious near the edges since he’d heard about his fall. This section of wall was further from the trees than other parts. “Do I… climb on your back? Like a piggyback ride?”

Levi paused switching out his tanks for Eren’s. “You might knock off my drum if you’re hanging onto my back. Last time I tied you to my front like a baby.”

The look on Eren’s face as he contemplated clinging to Levi… It kinda pissed him off. He didn’t have to look so pained. He pulled the last strap hard, binding the gas tightly to his legs.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Eren took a step forward. Hesitated. Levi’s feet suddenly felt frozen to the ground. They were standing an awkward thirty centimeters apart, neither of them making a move to close the distance. Now that he was trying to do it he realized how different it was to bind a conscious Eren to his chest. He forced it out: “You should probably tie your belt to mine. We can’t have you falling off again.”

God, it was awkward to step toward each other. They took Eren’s cables to bind their belts together. The whole thing was just so uncomfortable. Levi didn’t have any practice sticking his hips near another person’s body, being connected at the waist. Having Eren’s chest basically mashed up against his. How warm Eren was.

Probably best to not think about that right now. He avoided Eren’s eyes and said, “Hold on.”

Almost cringed when Eren put his arms around Levi’s neck. At least Eren was tall enough that he couldn’t see Levi’s face with his own face pressed against Levi’s head. Levi set his hooks into the edge of the wall and braced himself for the jump off the edge. The harness tightened; the weight of the both of them had the leather digging into him hard. And it was getting hard to breathe.

“Stop choking me,” he hissed after they’d moved over the edge.

“Sorry.” Eren loosened some of the pressure he was inflicting on Levi’s neck.

He’d forgotten how solid Eren was. He had to brace his feet against the wall for balance, and Eren’s legs had to dangle in between his. He didn’t have any experience being between anybody’s legs either. It not only felt extremely awkward what with the occasional brush of Eren’s leg against his junk, but also fairly difficult to loosen the one hook. The tension in the zip line, now holding up two far-from-dainty lumberjacks, seemed dangerously high. Levi paused, keeping an eye on how stable it was. Not that it really mattered. This was their only shot. Carefully, he started lowering them.

Halfway down, Levi suddenly felt it: a small hiccup in the flow of gas. He came to a halt.

“Is everything okay?”

Absolutely not. The tanks were defective. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise after all the abuse Eren’s body had gone through in his fall into Wall Maria. Assuming that Eren’s tanks were good to use was a gross miscalculation. If the gas was about to give out… How the hell was he going to pull this off?

“Levi?”

“Just needed a break.”

Levi reeled in a grapple. He wasn’t sure how much Eren would panic if he told him the tanks were failing. Panic alone could kill them at this point. All he could do was keep going, like he always did when life got hard. He descended several more meters before feeling it again. The ground was still far off. This wasn’t looking good.

Many things had gone wrong in Levi’s life. Many, many things. He’d always found a way to get through the crap life liked to throw his way. Always found a way to survive in the Underground, with Kenny, at the logging camp. But this might be the end. Running out of gas just over fifteen meters from the ground was going to be what finally killed him.

“Levi?”

There was no hiding it anymore.

“We’re out of gas.”

He could feel Eren stiffen. He knew it as well as Levi did. They couldn’t hang there indefinitely. They didn’t have enough cable to climb down. If they tried to drop off the wall at this height, they’d break every bone in their bodies, dying in a broken, bleeding lump. Damn. So they were destined to die for touching the walls after all.

“What now?”

“We can either dehydrate hanging here, or throw ourselves off the wall for a quick death.” It was too bad they didn’t have a ladder or some more rope or something else tall to get them down. The trees were too far away to do it, and the only other tall thing around was the Titans on the other side of the wall.

The Titans.

That was it.

“Or you could turn into a Titan again.”

Eren pulled back far enough to look at him, obviously confused. He opened his mouth several times, face twisting more with each one. He didn’t even seem to know what question he wanted to ask. Finally, he spoke up.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“I’m sorry Eren.” He deserved it, that apology. Not only for the information Levi had kept from him, and not only for kinda being the one who pushed Eren over the wall. It was also for the huge favor he was going to ask of him, the terrible knowledge he was going to have to tell him. “There’s something else I didn’t tell you. When you fell over Maria you were eaten by a Titan.”

Now Eren looked more worried than confused. “That’s not possible,” Eren insisted. He thumped his hand to his chest. “I’m alive!”

“I saw the whole thing. After you got eaten the Titan exploded, and a second Titan came out of it. It kinda looked like you, you know. When I cut open its neck I found you inside, alive. So if you could do that again, it would be pretty helpful. You were about fifteen meters tall.”

Silence fell over them. Eren almost had a look of pity on his face, watching Levi. Obviously, he didn’t seem to believe him. Perfectly reasonable. Levi wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it himself. But it sure would help. The Titan form was tall enough that they could climb down.

“Are you okay?” Eren asked after a long pause. Levi looked him in the eye.

“Yes. I didn’t say anything before because I wasn’t sure if you were dangerous. I don’t know what triggered that transformation.”

If the look on Eren’s face was anything to go by, he still thought Levi had gone insane with dehydration. Too bad. It would have been nice if Eren was able to get them down. Well, if that wasn’t an option, “So when do you want me to drop us?”

“Huh?”

“I’m not gonna dehydrate to death. Are you ready for me to pull in the hooks?”

Eren went quiet. “I—”

Before he could say anything, there was a sudden groaning sound. They both looked up. One of the grapples slipped, the brick around it starting to crack. Levi knew what was going to happen. That knowledge didn’t do a damn thing to help. There was nothing they could do. In a spray of rocks and dust, the hook burst away from the wall.

The two of them dropped several more meters, swinging wildly from the one measly anchor they had left. His vision dimmed for a moment when they slammed into the wall.

A sudden light flicked past Levi’s eyes.

Slowly, they stopped swinging. Now that they were still, Levi could see what had caught his eye. Eren had a necklace on. Had he always worn that? A thin leather strap with a pendant that had just wriggled free from Eren’s shirt when they’d struck the wall.

“Is that a key?”

“Yeah. It opens my basement. My dad gave it to me when… Dad…”

His voice dropped off. Levi looked up and was greeted by Eren’s face turning pale. Shit, he was gonna pass out again. Levi jabbed a hand into Eren’s side, waking him up immediately. He yelped, but he was conscious. Levi gave it a few minutes for more color to make it into Eren’s face before he asked.

“Do you always faint when you talk about your dad?”

“I don’t know.” Eren frowned. He was thinking, but this time didn’t look in danger of losing consciousness. “But when I think about him, I know I’m forgetting something. Something important.”

“About the Titan shit?”

“It was…” He shuddered. “He stabbed me. With a syringe. I think he injected me with something. I… I don’t know what happens next.”

“Does that mean you’re some kind of human experiment?”

“I think so. He disappeared after that so I don’t know anything else.”

That explained some things, but Levi was very curious how the hell Eren’s father managed to do any of this. No one on this side of the walls knew what the Titans were or where they came from. So how had he known how to do this?

“I think I need to cut myself.”

Levi waited for an explanation. He got one.

“I’m pretty sure. To do it, I have to cut my hand,” Eren said, looking intensely at his fist. He reached for one of the axes.

“Should we untie ourselves first? I’d rather you not crush me to death if this works.”

They managed to undo the knots until Eren was only holding onto Levi without any support other than clamping his legs around Levi’s waist. He was too wired about what Eren was about to try to care. They both hesitated, concerned about what would happen if Eren leapt from the wall and tried to transform. There was no way to tell if it was going to work.

Eren suddenly looked away. He wasn’t letting go.

“In case this doesn’t work, can I…” He took a breath; closed his eyes; the words came out in a rush. “Before we die I want to kiss you.”

Levi blinked.

Blinked again.

“The hell?” It was the only conscious thought in his head.

Eren was turning red again, and refusing to look Levi in the eye. “I want one before I go. But if you don’t want it—”

A kiss. Huh. He couldn’t help it. He looked at Eren’s lips, moving quickly as he babbled out words Levi didn’t even hear. They were chapped, so were Levi’s, they hadn’t had any extras on top of the wall. Levi looked higher, taking in Eren’s eyes. His cheeks were flushed, and his green eyes were pointedly not looking at him. Even his hair seemed agitated. It had fallen out of the band he usually kept it in and it was just sweeping his face. Eren had to keep letting go to push it out of his mouth. He was still talking about it.

Kissing. Levi didn’t understand why he would ask this, but. Looking at him, he didn’t see any reason to decline. Kissing Eren was certainly an odd final request, but it wasn’t horrible.

“It’s fine.”

Eren stopped talking, looking at him for the first time since asking. He looked shocked that he’d actually agreed. Levi had never kissed anyone, couldn’t promise it would be any good, but he could grant that dying wish. “You can kiss me.”

The flush on Eren’s face deepened. He didn’t make a move. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

Ah. The old not-wanting-to-die-a-virgin urge. That explained why Eren was putting a hand on Levi’s jaw. And swallowing hard. And bumping their foreheads together. It didn’t explain why Levi’s pulse was picking up. He’d never been worried about dying that way. Or been interested in kissing. The look on Eren’s face was so intense. His eyes closed, feeling Eren’s breath on his face they were so close.

There was a cracking sound.

Eren stopped, centimeters from Levi’s lips. The cable they were hanging from started to move; the last hook was slipping.

The weight on Levi suddenly disappeared. One second he’d been readying himself for the kiss and in an instant, he was once again watching Eren falling away from him, raising his hand up to his mouth. There was an explosion just as Levi’s last hook snapped. He was falling. Air rushed past his head, the loose cables streaming up into the air. Steam was blowing against his back as he dropped and dropped. He wondered how long it would take to hit the ground, if he would feel it when he died.

The wind was knocked out of him as he crashed hard onto something solid and warm. It took a moment to realize he was aching from the landing. Levi managed to gasp in a breath. Then another one. He became aware of how fast his heart was beating.

He wasn’t dead.

He moved his hands first, flexing his fingers and trying to move his legs. Nothing felt broken. He cracked his eyes open; Levi was lying on a lump of flesh, a familiar face looking down at him. Sat up. There was a giant pillar of flesh and bone supporting the two of them, which had broken their fall. The transformation worked.

“I’m stuck.”

Levi turned in the direction of the other man’s voice. Well, it halfway worked. The Titan wasn’t fully formed this time but it was good enough. And there he was; Eren was kneeling on the pillar, one arm firmly lodged in the flesh. He did it. He was alive.

Levi managed to get to his feet and pull out one of the axes. In a few minutes, he’d cut him loose. Steam started to rise up out of the pillar when he freed Eren. Levi offered a hand.

“How are you feeling?” he asked when Eren managed to stand.

“Tired,” Eren admitted. He looked like shit, pale and the hand clasping Levi’s was shaking. Steam was still wafting around them. Levi remembered how quickly the other Titans had dissolved after dying. They had to move.

“Can you climb down?”

A nod. So they began the scramble down the pillar.


	8. Soulmates - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren and Levi have broken out of prison and now hold a dangerous secret about the Titans. They are left with a tough decision to make.

The moment their feet touched the ground, Eren collapsed as the last of the Titan body evaporated. Levi picked him up and carried his body to a shady area under some trees. He waited a bit to see if Eren would wake up quickly. It was not to be. Sitting there in the forest reminded Levi of a time when Kuchel still told him stories, fairy tales about sleeping princesses and apples, watching as Eren lay there sleeping soundly in the grass. Transforming seemed to take a lot out of him.

If that first transformation was anything to go by, Eren was going to be sleeping well into the night. Levi had to leave him there to collect some water. He looked for Eren’s axe, unsuccessfully. It had apparently been thrown off of him when he transformed and flung out of reach. Throughout the water sanitizing process and while Levi ate his dinner, Eren kept sleeping. It was past sundown by the time Levi heard something.

“Levi?”

That was a little surprising. He’d recovered faster than before.

“Here, drink some water.”

Eren needed help to sit up and lean against the tree, but he took the canteen Levi passed to him and seemed able to handle that on his own. The water was unfortunately still warm from the boiling, but drinkable nonetheless. As Eren drank, Levi couldn’t tear his eyes away from the other man’s mouth.

He couldn’t stop thinking about how Eren had asked to kiss him. It wasn’t personal. Levi understood full well that Eren had asked because he didn’t want to die without ever experiencing it. He hadn’t wanted to kiss him specifically. He was probably glad that their kiss had been interrupted. Now that they were on the ground, less than a weeks’ walk from Trost, where survival was basically assured, Levi supposed Eren wasn’t going to be asking for any more.

Somehow that bothered Levi. He hadn’t especially wanted the kiss, but the interruption bugged him.

“Thanks.”

Levi shook those thoughts away. Corked Eren’s canteen for him since his grip was obviously still weak. “You want something to eat?”

Dinner and a night of rest on soft, cozy grass left them refreshed for the last leg of the trip. The journey to Trost continued about the same on the ground as it had in the air. They avoided the roads as a precaution, scrounged for food and drink as they walked, conserved their water by not chatting, and kept heading south. There was no more talk of kissing.

* * *

Two days in, they were picking wild fruit when an arrow shot past Levi’s face. He whipped around, saw Eren reaching his hand to his mouth.

“ _Stop!_ ” he yelled, mostly to Eren. They had no gas, and only one axe left. He had no idea how he would cut Eren free if he transformed right now.

A man stepped into sight, lowering a bow. But he wasn’t a soldier. He wore a hat and had a neatly-trimmed beard and moustache. A young woman who was clearly his daughter followed him with her own bow. The man stuck a second arrow back into the quiver on his back. Hunters, not soldiers. “Sorry ‘bout that. Y’all should stay out of these woods durin’ huntin’ season.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Levi said, hoping that the man and his daughter would leave soon. Witnesses could get messy. If there were warrants out for him and Eren, he didn’t want someone who could place them here.

The man strode straight toward them, raising his hackles even further. He would fight if he had to, if this man was planning on turning them in. Eren’s hand was still dangerously close to his teeth. Only the hunter was walking calmly, and once he had passed Levi, he looked and saw that the arrow had struck a bird and lodged into a tree. He was only collecting his kill.

“Y’all from up north? Ne’er seen cloth like that before.”

Fuck. To Levi’s immense surprise, Eren piped up, “No, we’re from the south.”

The man nodded. Silently, Levi praised him for throwing that out there. He’d been thinking so much about basic survival he’d neglected to think of a cover story they’d need when they eventually started seeing other humans. The hunter worried the arrow out of the tree and stuck the corpse into a small bag. As he was walking away, he gave them a piercing look, taking them and the small pile of fruit they’d gathered in.

“If y’all are hungry, git yerselves to Dauper village,” he pointed his bow off into the distance. “There’s work and food at the Braus ranch, five kilometers north o’ here. Just follow the road, ya cain’t miss it.”

Not until the hunters had been gone for a good ten minutes did Levi’s heart start to calm down. This was the first person they’d run into since breaking out of prison, the first civilian he’d spoken to in years. He hadn’t counted on how out of place he now felt after all the time he’d spent at the logging camp.

What he’d also not counted on was that they themselves would stick out. Levi had gone straight from the Underground to the logging camp. He had had no idea that the clothing they were given at the prison was unusual for the area. Clearly, they were going to face some obstacles if they tried to re-enter society as they were.

“Seems like we should ditch these clothes.” He looked at Eren, who had finally put his hand down. “Or do people in Trost usually dress like this?”

Eren shook his head, frowning. “I wasn’t there long, but people were dressed the same as Shiganshina.” He plucked the front of his shirt. “I never saw clothes like this before I got to prison.”

Well damn. They couldn’t walk up to a military hub in prison uniforms. Not if they wanted to stay free. Clearly, they needed new clothes, which meant they either needed to scrounge up some money to buy something or find an unattended clothesline.

There was only one place Levi was aware of that they could do either of those things. The man had mentioned a nearby village, Dauper. That was their best chance of getting clothes. Grabbing something and running would be the safest, but it wouldn’t hurt them to stick around and earn some money before heading off. Maybe if he was lucky, they’d even get a bath.

“Get ready to leave. We should go to the village that guy mentioned.”

The mere mention of the idea had Eren’s face falling.

“Trost’ll still be there if we stop for a few days. We need money and clothes.”

Stopping at Dauper would be safe. Levi was fairly sure of it. The hunter had shown no signs of recognition. Neither had his daughter. Both of them had a weapon so if they had been planning on taking them in, he could have easily done it. They would only be there a little while, just enough to regroup and prepare for heading to Trost to find Eren’s family.

And then what would happen to him?

Levi’s hands, busy wrapping up his handkerchief into a bundle for the fruit, stopped. He hadn’t spent much time thinking about what he would do in Trost. Or why he was even going to Trost. When they had first escaped Eren had said he wanted to go there, but the other man had never actually invited him to go the same direction or asked Levi to come along. They could have gone their separate ways a long time ago. He’d only assumed that Eren wanted Levi to come with him.

Levi had just spent ten days following a man who never asked for company. Not on their journey, and certainly not in Trost. It was far more likely Eren didn’t want his prison cellmate hanging around constantly, or meeting his family. He knew Levi was a murderer, after all. He felt foolish for misunderstanding so greatly.

“Levi, I’m ready.”

Eren didn’t look scared of him, or concerned that they were still walking side-by-side. Only a few days earlier he’d even asked for a kiss, hardly something he would do if he was really afraid of him. Levi considered asking, but the words stuck in his throat. He didn’t want to hear the answer if it was true. Instead, he quietly made a decision.

“Then let’s go.” He would get Eren safely to Trost. He did care about what happened to him. When they reached the city Levi would move on.

He grabbed his things and the two of them struggled through the forest until they reached a road. It was a simple dirt road, obviously not well-traveled. There was no evidence of anyone passing through in weeks. Like the hunter had said, there was only one path heading north and an hour of walking got them in sight of smoke plumes wafting above the trees.

They’d reached Dauper village.

It was relatively small, with modest thatched roofs dotting the village center. They could see a large clearing with a paddock where a herd of horses frolicked. That had to be the ranch the hunter had described. That was where they needed to go. The two of them hung back at the edge of the clearing, apprehensive about entering their first town in years.

“Is it safe for us to go in there?” Eren asked.

“We can always look for a clothesline and steal something.” Levi’s gut was telling him going to Dauper was the right choice, but Eren wasn’t wrong to worry. They had options.

Eren frowned. Chewed it over. Finally, “No, I don’t want to steal.”

“Then I guess we better get our asses moving.”

Levi made the first move, walking out into the clearing. Eren followed. There were a few people milling around, but no one seemed to pay much attention to two strangers walking up to the house directly next to the large horse barn. Levi stepped aside so that Eren could knock on the front door. After a wait that felt agonizingly long, it opened, revealing a middle-aged woman.

“Is this the Braus ranch?”

“Yep.”

“We were told there’s work here.”

She shifted her weight. Looked them up and down. She said, “My husband is out, but we welcome help. Can ya muck a stable?”

“I can chop wood,” Eren said. “And clean.”

She turned toward Levi.

“I have more experience with laundry.” He’d never set foot in a stable in his life. He hadn’t even seen one until leaving the Underground. Laundry, logging, and killing was what he knew best. They weren’t especially useful skills for raising horses, but hopefully they were worth something. Their remaining axe was worth two sets of clothes, but they couldn’t trade it. That was their only survival tool. The VMG—straps hidden away under their clothes—was out as well. They’d have to resort to theft if she turned them away.

“Yer in luck, it’s laundry day.”

Levi’s heart lightened as she opened the door wider. “Why don’t ya come on in?”

For the rest of the afternoon, Eren chopped wood to keep the laundry fire going while Levi boiled and scrubbed sheets and horse blankets. Their own clothes went in as well, since Mrs. Braus had told them in no uncertain terms to change into something clean. Levi couldn’t blame her. They hadn’t bathed since leaving prison and it had been hot out every day since.

The gloriously fresh clothes on his back and the bountiful supply of soap gave him hope that they’d be allowed to have a bath. It had been so long. Work passed much more easily with that hope alive in his chest. He threw himself into his work. Mrs. Braus checked on them occasionally, and seemed pleased by how much they’d gotten done.

“You boys can come on inside for supper,” she announced at sundown. “We’re havin’ wild fowl tonight.”

Eren perked up as he jammed the Braus’ axe into a stump. “I haven’t had meat in so long.”

“Me too.”

The last time for Levi had been when Kenny robbed a tavern. He was in a fairly good mood when he re-entered the house. It dipped a bit when he saw the same hunter seated at the head of the table. Although when he thought about it, it made perfect sense that it was the rancher himself who was handing out jobs as he trekked through the woods. Still, there was a moment of panic as Levi wondered whether or not they’d walked into a trap. He didn’t see any soldiers around, and the weapons had all been put away.

“Glad ta see you boys made it,” he greeted them. Then to his wife, “Yep, that’s them. Found ‘em half-starved in the forest.”

“We ran out of money on our travels,” Eren said, the same story he’d proposed to Levi on the hike to the ranch. They’d hammered out a number of details they hoped would throw anyone who might suspect them off. Eren, the one with far more experience with above-ground society, was to do most of the talking. “We’ve been camping out for a few weeks now.”

“Then let’s get ya somethin’ good ta eat!” The cheerful tone from both Mr. and Mrs. Braus seemed genuine, which was comforting.

Even more comforting was the sight of a huge bowl of steamed potatoes being placed on the table. The smell that wafted over when a platter with duck was set next to it made Levi’s mouth water. If the Brauses said anything more to him, he had no idea. He was too busy eating the huge slices of duck that Mr. Braus had pushed onto his plate.

“ _I could get used to this_ ,” Levi thought. Maybe he would come back here after dropping Eren off in Trost. It would be a nice life in Dauper, raising horses in a calm village where he could get by with nonviolent work. It was something that he’d never in his life pictured could be a reality for him. The only thing he’d miss in the village would be Eren.

But Eren was young, with a whole life to live. The best thing for him would be to find a place in Trost to settle down by his loved ones. Maybe find someone to settle down with, not grasp at straws in a life-or-death tumble. And it was best that Levi left him to do that unimpeded. It was hard to swallow his dinner all of a sudden.

“Better than those scraps ya were scroungin’ for in the woods, huh?”

He looked down. Levi hadn’t even noticed that he’d cleaned every crumb off his plate. He couldn’t remember a time when he was stuffed full of delicious food like this.

“It was amazing.” Eren sounded as dazed as Levi felt.

“Yer free ta stay here an’ work if ya want,” Mr. Braus said to Eren. “Our other ranch hands go home at night, but we’ve got space in the attic if y’all need a place to sleep.”

“That would be great. Just until we can afford to travel again.”

“Where are y’all headed next?”

“Nowhere in particular.”

The Brauses seemed friendly, but some caution wouldn’t hurt. There was no real reason to let them know they were headed for Trost. Mr. Braus leaned back in his chair. “Well that’s good. Yer young, it’s the perfect time ta travel before ya’ve got a wife and little piglets ta raise.”

His daughter’s face flared. “Hey!”

Mr. Braus ruffled her hair. “Naw, little _unicorns_ ta raise.”

“Speakin’ o’ which, ya ran out ta hunt so early I didn’ get ta ask Sasha how long her leave is,” Mrs. Braus piped up.

“I got five days before I head back to Stohess,” the daughter, Sasha apparently, replied.

“Inside Sina?” Eren asked.

She nodded, grinning smugly. “Placed seventh in my class at trainin’!”

The words meant little to Levi, but he did glean from the unicorn talk and her service that the Brauses daughter was Military Police. That made the meal he’d just eaten turn a little. They were dangerously close to someone who had plenty of reason to turn them in. She seemed to be Eren’s age, almost twenty. Leave saved up. Kept slipping up between her parents’ rural dialect and one she’d picked up in the city. That amounted to some time spent in service. Surely she’d be aware of outstanding warrants in the area.

She seemed far more interested in the cake her mother was cutting up than either of them. But the last thing he wanted was for an MP to remember his face. So staying at Dauper was no good for Levi. That was too bad. He’d have to find another plan for when he and Eren separated.

“—food’s pretty good—” Levi had missed that Sasha was still talking “—but my C.O.’s a weird one. Captain Smith wants ta _fight Titans_ , can you believe it?”

Across the table, Eren froze. Levi almost leapt to his feet, certain that he was going to faint again. It wasn’t quite the same look Eren got when he was thinking about his father, but it was close.

“Erwin Smith?” Eren blurted it out so suddenly the whole room quieted. There was a little more color in his face.

“Ya know him?” Sasha asked through a mouthful of cake.

“I’ve heard of him.”

He didn’t say much beyond that. Sasha kept going with her anecdote, only Levi didn’t hear any of it. Eren had mentioned a Hannes but he never said he was looking for anyone else. Then there was that reaction. He was sitting up and eating, but he was still pale as hell. Did that mean this Smith guy was part of the mystery? Did he know something about Eren’s father, or the Titans themselves?

Levi waited until Mrs. Braus showed him and Eren to the attic to ask. “You all right?”

“Yes,” Eren mumbled. Didn’t seem like it. He sat on one of the cots in the attic and didn’t even make a move to start putting the sheets Mrs. Braus had given them on. Levi finished making his bed and saw that Eren hadn’t moved an inch. He pointed at the bed he’d just made. Eren moved, leaving Levi room to finish up making the other bed. He was still silent.

“Is it Titan related?” Levi prompted.

Eren nodded.

“Related to that guy the daughter mentioned?”

Another nod. “I can’t explain it, but his name is familiar. I can’t go to Trost.”

The pillowcase in Levi’s hands hit the floor. He couldn’t have heard that right. This entire journey was all about Trost. Only Eren was staring at the floor with a grim determination that spoke volumes. All that effort they’d poured into their escape and he was turning back now?

“What about your family?”

“I need to see Erwin.” Eren clutched his key through his shirt. “I know it.”

This was bad. He was getting that dangerous energy he’d been displaying at the logging camp in the weeks before he made a break for it.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” Eren’s eyes were screaming that he was going to do it anyway. Levi tried hopelessly to say something that would stop it. “You’re not gonna get a lot of chances to escape prison. You’d better not piss this away.”

“It doesn’t feel right. There’s something funny going on, with the Titans, with my father. People turning into Titans. I just can’t sit back and ignore this power. I promised to kill every last one of them. I need to do what I can. For the good of humanity.”

Levi’s chest squeezed. It pained him to ask, “You’re really going to turn yourself in?”

“No.”

A tiny bit of relief.

“I’m sure I need to take this power to him, but I’m going to strike a deal first. I have to get Mikasa and Armin out of the farm camp. I’ll…” he dropped off. Swallowed. “I’ll miss you. But I have to do this. I have to explain myself to Commander Erwin.”

A feeling struck Levi then, as sudden and powerful as lightning. He could see a green field and a crest. A white feather crossed a blue one. It filled him with a sense of purpose he’d never felt before. It was like a calling, that he was meant to accept this. That he was meant to go with Eren. Was this what the other man had meant, suddenly _knowing_ that he needed to meet Erwin?

“I want to go with you.” He really did. This time he would ask Eren what he wanted, hoping that he would say yes.

The look on Eren’s face was hard to read. He didn’t look horrified by the prospect. He almost looked hopeful. Sounded hopeful when he slowly said, “You want to meet him too?”

“No. I’m saying I want to go with you.”

“But why?”

Why indeed? Heading inside Sina to meet the Military Police was a ridiculously large gamble. He could be walking himself right back into prison and to the mines if he did this. But if he left Eren now, he could find another Dauper. Levi was strong, he would always be able to find work and provide for himself. He could have a fine, easy life.

But Levi really couldn’t do that. He didn’t have the dedication to humanity that Eren apparently did, but after months of working alongside him, experiencing the hope that welled from him, he couldn’t walk away. Not after felling tree after tree with Eren and watching him hold strong under life’s buffeting. Not after he’d trekked across the walls with Eren, sweating and scrounging and fishing together. There was another feeling welling up in Levi, that he was meant to meet Eren and go with him. They had to be together for it to work. It felt right to have the other man by his side. He didn’t want to leave him.

That was the answer he gave Eren. “I’d miss you too much.”

Eren’s face immediately turned red. And that blush was suddenly reminding Levi of the day they’d been hanging helplessly off the wall and a red-faced Eren had asked to kiss him. He’d wondered about it, while they were walking through the woods around Dauper, if Eren could have possibly meant anything more by it.

“You’re going to give me the wrong idea.”

His words had Levi thinking: was Eren really getting the wrong idea? Levi wasn’t sure if carrying special feelings for someone else was supposed to feel like this, but he could tell even with his limited experience with relationships that what he was feeling was something deeper than friendship. This felt more like finding something he never knew he was missing.

“It’s not too far off.”

Suddenly Eren put his face in his hands. Even his ears were turning red at that point. Levi was suddenly struck by how adorable he was.

“Really?” The words were muffled by his hands, still trying to cover up his bashfulness.

“I wouldn’t fuck around about this.”

Eren slowly pulled his hands back down. He was still fairly red, and his face was twitching like he was trying hard to beat back a smile. “Does that mean I can still kiss you?”

It completely eluded him what Eren saw in a convicted killer like Levi, but he answered, “Yes.”

Eren lost the fight to keep a silly grin off his face. That was perfectly fine, Levi liked it this way, seeing expression on the other man’s face. His heart started to pound when Eren reached out and took his hands. They were so warm. Eren stood up and Levi felt a little tingle being this close. It tingled even more when he felt Eren’s lips touch his.

Kissing Eren was indescribable. Levi was barely thinking any conscious thoughts, only was aware of how warm he felt, feeling Eren’s arms wrap around his waist and being pressed so close to him. If he hadn’t needed to breathe, he would have wanted to stay there forever.

* * *

Five days passed at the Braus ranch in a blink, doing chores and sneaking kisses where they could. Levi didn’t want Sasha’s leave to end. When it did, they would be going back to Stohess with her. To be accurate, they would not be allowed to enter any part of Wall Sina, but they would be heading for the outpost on the Rose side of the border town. That was where they would mail a letter to Erwin Smith with a piece of the information Eren was convinced would intrigue him enough into wanting to hear the rest. If he agreed to meet with him, then they would negotiate the price for Eren’s power.

The plan was risky enough that although he felt a pull to do it, Levi still wished they could stay in Dauper like this. He worried that no amount of negotiating could save Eren. It wasn’t his choice to make though. As happy as Eren seemed with their situation now, he spoke often of what things would be like after they started the fight to get Wall Maria back. There was no stopping him when he was determined.

After breakfast on the fifth day, they got the last of their possessions, old clothing packed away, and left Dauper.

 


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

Zeke was sitting by a campfire in front of Levi. The other soldiers hovered anxiously around them. Levi was really getting pissed off. The other man would reveal useful information on occasion, but was obviously holding back a great deal. He changed subjects rapidly. He demanded Eren’s body. And he spouted out crap like, “You’re not popular with women, are you?”

“We’ve already discussed this several times,” he continued like he had the luxury of complaining about people being upset with his crimes. “I have questions too, you know.”

Levi was tempted to tell him to go do something anatomically infeasible to himself, but Hange had given him strict orders to not upset Zeke too badly. They needed his participation. They couldn’t have lost who they’d lost in Marley and not at least come out with the information Zeke was hoarding. So no more chopping off his legs, and he had to be a little nicer.

“What’s your damn question?” Hange had never said how much nicer. This was all he deserved.

Zeke peered at him for a moment before talking, “I was only thinking about your old commander, Erwin. He seemed pretty skilled.”

“He was. He did found the Survey Corps.”

Zeke sent him a peculiar look. “I thought your little group was older than that?”

“Older than what?”

“Your Survey Corps has to be older than him. We’ve known about the 3DMG in Marley for some time.”

Levi wasn’t sure when the Survey Corps was founded exactly, but, “It was already around when we were kids.”

“How did he start a new branch of the military as a child?”

“Erwin didn’t start the Survey Corps.”

Now Zeke was giving him a look that was even more upsetting than his casual description of razing Ragako. “That’s what you just said.”

The hell? Was Levi going senile already? He knew that Erwin—much as he had achieved—didn’t do that. Yet he suddenly had a strong memory of Erwin with unicorn patches instead of the wings of freedom. It looked deeply wrong, but he could see him passionately arguing in front of Zackley, the King, and the whole military court to let him take troops to revive an old military division centered around a human weapon he’d discovered.

It made no sense. Levi had been at Eren’s trial, he’d already been a member of the Survey Corps for years at the time. None of that had happened. He certainly didn’t remember wearing a red plaid shirt like the one in his memories. Where was this coming from?

“When do I get to do my experiment with Eren?”

There was time to worry about that later. For now, he had to focus on the Eren that was here in this world.

* * *

Eren was already on the run. After he broke out of his jail cell and sealed it behind himself, he headed off to find Zeke. The only way he could quickly cover ground was by transforming. He bit his hand. When his eyes had adjusted to the sensation of viewing the world through his Titan eyes, he began to run. In no time, he was through the forest and heading for the wall. Before he leapt onto the wall to climb it, he checked his hand to make sure Levi was still fine.

He stopped in his tracks.

Levi wasn’t in his hand. He scratched his Titan head. Of course he wasn’t, he was supposed to be guarding Zeke right now. It was the strangest thing. All of a sudden he’d had a distinct memory of carrying Levi down from the wall in his Titan hand. Even though Levi had never been in his hand. Not even once. Certainly not while he was wearing a red shirt and blue pants that Eren had never seen before.

Why would he have a memory of this? This couldn’t be one of his father’s memories, unless Levi had met him when Grisha was still the Founding Titan and not said anything.

That seemed unlikely. Just as unlikely as the other memory that was sudden bothering him. One where he was dressed in similar pants and a green shirt while he chopped wood with Levi. A memory of something that had never happened.

It was a mystery Eren couldn’t solve on his own, these two Levis and Erens existing in two worlds that were at the same time so similar and so different. He leapt high in the air and scrambled up the wall. He’d find Zeke and maybe, finally, he’d get a proper explanation from his brother. Then he’d focus on his other goal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written a parallel universe fic before, but I liked it! Ereri canon week was a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoyed the story.


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